A92147:447
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.
But, 8. he who by office is obliged to expend himself, and to1 give his life for the safety of the people, he must be inferior to the people. So Christ saith, the life is more then raiment or food, because both these give themselves to corruption for mans life: so the beasts are inferior to man, because they die for our life, that they may sustain our life: And Caiaphas prophesied right, that it was better that one man die, then that the whole Nation perish, Joh. 11. v. 50. and in nature, Elements against their particular inclination defraud themselves of their private and particular ends, that the Commonwealth of Nature may stand, as heavy elements ascend, light descend, lest nature should perish by a vacuity. And the good shepherd, Joh. 10. giveth his life for his sheep. So Saul and David both were made Kings to fight the Lords battles, and to expose their lives to hazard for the safety of the Church and people of God. But the ⟨p. 143⟩King by office is obliged to expend his life for the safety of the people of God; he is obliged to fight the Lords battles for them, to go betwixt the Flock and death, as Paul was willing to be spent for the Church. It may be objected, Jesus Christ gave himself a Ransom for his Church, and his life for the life of the World, and was a gift given to the world, Joh. 3. 16. & 4. 10. and he was a mean to save us: And so what arguments we have before produced to prove that the King must be inferior to the people, because2 he is a ransom, a mean, a gift; are not concludent. I answer: Consider a mean reduplicatively, and formaliter, as a mean, and secondly, as a mean materially, that is, the thing which is a mean. 2. Consider that which is only a mean, and ransom, and gift, and no more; and that which, beside that it is a mean, is of a higher nature also. So Christ formally as a mean, giving, 1. his temporal life; 2. for a time; 3. according to the flesh: For, 1. the eternal life; 2. of all the Catholic Church to be glorified eternally; 3. not his blessed Godhead and glory, which, as God, he had with the Father from eternity. In that respect Christ hath the relation of a servant, ransom, gift, and some inferiority in comparison of the Church of God: and his Fathers glory, as a mean, is inferior to the end, but Christ materially, in concreto: