A92147:452
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.
and therefore all must be the same way created and moulded of God, except by Scripture Royalists can show us a difference. An English Prelate giveth1 Reasons, why People, who are said to make Kings as efficients, and Authors, cannot unmake them: the one is, because God as chief and sole supreme Moderator maketh Kings, but I say, Christ as the chief Moderator, and head of the Church, doth immediately confer abilities to a man to be a Preacher, and though by industry the man acquire abilities, yet in regard the Church doth not so much as instrumentally confer those abilities, they may be said to come from God immediately, in relation to the Church, who calleth the man to the ministry, yea Royalists, as our excommunicated Prelate learned2 from Spalato, say that God, at the naked presence of the Churches call, doth immediately infuse that from Heaven, by which the man is now in Holy Orders, and a Pastor, whereas he was not so before; and yet Prelates cannot deny, but they can unmake Ministers, and have practised this in their unhallowed Courts: and therefore though God immediately without any action of the people make Kings, this is a weak reason, to prove they cannot unmake them. As for their undeleble character, that Prelates cannot take from a Minister, it is nothing, if the Church may unmake a Minister, though3 his character go to prison with him: we seek no more but to annul the reason. God immediately maketh Kings and Pastors, ergo no power on earth can unmake them; this consequence is as weak as water. 2. The other cause is, because God hath erected no Tribunal on earth higher then the Kings Tribunal, ergo no power on earth can unmake a King; the Antecedent and consequence is both denied, and is a begging of the question: for the Tribunal that made the King is above the King. 2. Though there be no Tribunal formally regal and Kingly above the King, yet is there a Tribunal virtual eminently above him in the case of tyranny, for the States and Princes have a Tribunal above him.
and therefore all must be the same way created and moulded of God, except by Scripture Royalists can shew us a difference. An English Prelate giveth1 Reasons, why People, who are said to make Kings as efficients, and Authors, cannot unmake them: the one is, because God as chief and sole supreame Moderator maketh Kings, but I say, Christ as the chiefe Moderator, and head of the Church, doth immediatly conferre abilities to a man to be a Preacher, and though by industry the man acquire abilities, yet in regard the Church doth not so much as instrumentally conferre those abilities, they may be said to come from God immediatly, in relation to the Church, who calleth the man to the ministery, yea Royalists, as our excommunicated Prelate learned