A92147:460
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.
4. Saith the P. Prelate: The constituent cause is excellenter then1 the effect constituted, where the constitution is voluntary, and dependeth upon the free act of the will, as when the King maketh a Vice-Roy or a Judge, durante beneplacito, during his free will: but not when a man maketh over his right to another; for then there should be neither faith nor truth in covenants, if people might make over their power to their2 King, and retract and take back what they have once given.
- 1Except. 4. Sacr. sanct. maj. c. 9. p. 98.
- 2Observe here, that the P. P. yieldeth there is a free covenant, by which the people resign their power to the King: but whether Royal power, or some other, he dare not assert, lest he destroy his own principles. To swear non-selfe-preservation, and to swear selfmurther, all one. 5 Reply. Sac. sanct. maj. c. 9. p. 129. stolen from Barclaius, l. 5. c. 12.Observe here, that the P. P. yieldeth there is a free covenant, by which the people resigne their power to the King: but whether Royall power, or some other, he dare not assert, lest he destroy his own principles. To sweare non-selfe-preservation, and to sweare selfmurther, all one. 5 Reply. Sac. sanct. maj. c. 9. p. 129. stollen from Barclaius, l. 5. c. 12.
Ans. This is a begging of the question: for it is denied that the people can absolutely make away their whole power to the King: It dependeth on the people that they be not destroyed. They give to the King a politic power for their own safety, and they keep a natural power to themselves, which they must conserve, and cannot give away; and they do not break their covenant, when they put in act that natural power to conserve themselves; for though the people should give away that power, and swear, though the King should kill them all, they should not resist, nor defend their own lives; yet that being an oath against the sixth Command, which enjoineth natural self-preservation, it should not oblige the conscience; for it should be intrinsically sinful; and it's all one to swear to non-self-preservation, as to swear to self-murder.