A92147:468
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.
Prelates thinking is short, and no rule to Divines and Lawyers, for to the thinking of the learnedst Jurists this power of the King is but fiduciary, and that is (whether the Prelate think it, or think it not) a sort of power by trust, pawned or loan. Rex director 1Regni, non proprietarius, Molinae. in consuet. Parisi. Tit. 1. 9. 1. Glos. 7. n. 9. The King is a life-renter, not a Lord, or proprietor of his Kingdom. So Novel. 85. in princip. &c. 18. Quod magistratus sit nudus dispensator & defensor jurium regni, non proprietarius, constat ⟨p. 156⟩ex eo quodnon posset alienare imperium, oppida, urbes, regionésve, velres subditorum, bon•ve regni. So Gregory, l. 3. c. 8. de Repub. per c. 1. Sect. praeterea, de propo. feud. Hottoman. quest. illust. 1. Ferdinan▪ Vasquez. l. 1. c. 4. Bossius de princip. & privileg. illius, n. 290. The King is only a steward, and a defender of the laws of the Kingdom, not a proprietor, because he hath not power to make away the Empire, Cities, Townes, Countries, and goods of the Subjects: and, bona commissa Magistratui, sunt subjecta restitutioni, & in prejudtcium successorum alienari non possunt, per l. ult. Sect▪ sed nost. C. Comment. de leg. l. peto 69. fratrem de leg. 2. l. 32. ult. d. t. All the goods committed▪ to any Magistrate, are under Restitution: for he hath not power to make them away to the prejudice of his successors. The Prelates thoughts reach not the secrets of Jurists, and therefore he speaketh with a warrant; he will say no more then his short-travelled thoughts can reach; and that is but at the door. 7▪ Sovereignty is not 2in the Community (saith the P. Prelate.) Truly it neither is, nor can be, more then ten, or a thousand, or a thousand thousands, or a whole Kingdom can be one man; for Sovereignty is the abstract, the Sovereign is the concrete: Many cannot be one King or one Sovereign: a Sovereign must be essentially one; and a multitude cannot be one: but what then? may not the Sovereign power be eminently, fontaliter; originally and radically in the people? I think it may, and must be, A King is not an under-Judge, he is not a Lord of Council or Session formally, because he is more: The people is not King formally, because the people is eminently more then the King; for they make David King, and Saul King. And the power to make a Lord of Council and Session, is in the King (say Royalists.) 8.