A92147:426
A treatise of civil policy
A treatise of civil policy: being a resolution of forty three questions concerning prerogative, right and privilege, in reference to the supreme prince and the people. / By Samuel Rutherford professor of divinity of St Andrews in Scotland.A treatise of civil policy: being a resolution of forty three questions concerning prerogative, right and priviledge, in reference to the supream prince and the people. / By Samuel Rutherford professor of divintiy of St Andrews in Scotland.
London, : Printed and are to be sold by Simon Miller at the Star in St Pauls Church-yard near the West end., 1657 i.e. 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Gersom saith, Terrifying them from their purpose of seeking a King, and foretelling the evil of punishment that they should suffer under a tyrannous King; But he speaketh not one word of these necessary and comfortable Acts of favour, that a good King by his good Government was to do for his people, Deut. 17. ⟨p. 134⟩15, 16. But he speaketh of contrary facts here; and that he is dissuading them from suiting a King, is clear from the Text. 1. Because he saith, Give them their will; but yet protest against their unlawful course. 2. He biddeth the Prophet lay before them the tyranny, and oppression of their King; which tyranny Saul exercised in his time, as the story showeth. 3. Because how uneffectuall Samuel's exhortation was, is set down, Verse 19. Nevertheless, they would not obey the voice of Samuel, but said, Nay, but we will have a King over us; if Samuel had not been dehorting them from a King, how could they be said in this, to refuse to hear the voice of Samuel? 6. The ground of Barclay and Royalists, here is weak,1 For they say, that the people sought a King like the Nations, and the Kings of the Nations were all absolute, and so Tyrants; And God granted their unlawful desire, and gave them a Tyrant to reign over them, such as the Nations had. The plain contrary is true, they sought not a Tyrant, but one of the special reasons why they sought a King, was to be freed of Tyranny; for 1 Sam. 8. 3. Because Samuel's sons turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgement; therefore all the Elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel, to Ramah, and their they sought a King. 7. One could not more clearly speak with the mouth of a false Prophet, then the Author of active and passive obedience doth, while he2 will have Samuel here to describe a King, and to say; ye have formerly committed one error in shaking off the yoke of God, and seeking a King; so now beware you fall not in the next error, in casting of the yoke of a King, which God at your own desire hath laid on you; for God hath only power, both to make and unmake Kings; therefore prepare your selves patiently to suffer and bear. Answ. For if he were exhorting to patient suffering of the yoke of a King, he should presume it were Gods revealed and regulating will, that they should have a King;