A92147:446
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.
7. That which is eternal, and cannot politically die, yea which1 must continue as the days of heaven, because of Gods promise; That is more excellent then that which is both accidental, temporary and mortal. But the People is both eternal, as People, because ⟨p. 142⟩Eccles. 1. 4. one generation passeth away, and another generation 2cometh: And as a people in covenant with God, Jer. 32. 40, 41. in respect that a People and Church, though mortal in the individuals, yet the Church, remaining the Church, cannot dye; but the King, as King, may, and doth dye: It is true, where a Kingdom goeth by succession, the Politicians say, the man who is King, dyeth; but the King never dyeth, because some other, either by birth or free election, succeedeth in his room. But I answer, 1. People by a sort of necessity of nature succeedeth to People, generation to generation, except Gods judgement, contrary to nature, intervene to make Babylon no people, and a land that shall never be inhabited, (which I both believe and hope for, according to Gods word of Prophecy) But a King by a sort of contingency succeedeth to Kings: for nature doth not ascertain us there must be Kings to the worlds end; because the essence of Governors is kept safe in Aristocracy and Democracy, though there were no Kings. And that Kings should3 necessarily have been in the world, if man had never fallen in sin, I am not, by any cogent argument, induced to believe. I conceive there should have been no Government but these of Fathers & Children, Husband and Wife; and (which is improperly Government) some more gifted with supervenient additions to nature, as gifts and excellencies of Engines. Now in this point, Althusius polit. c. 38. n. 114. saith, the King in respect of office is worthier then the people; (but this is but an accidental respect) but as the King is a man, he is inferior to the people.
7. That which is eternall, and cannot politically die, yea which