A92147:479
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.
Hence I argue, If the Holy Ghost in this good King, forbid inferior Judges wresting of judgement, respecting of persons, and taking of gifts, because the judgement is the Lords; and if the Lord himself were on the Bench, he would not respect persons, nor take gifts; then he presumeth, that inferior Judges are in the stead and place of Jehovah: and that when these inferior Judges should take gifts, they make (as it were) the Lord, whose place they represent, to take gifts, and to do iniquity, and to respect persons: but that the holy Lord cannot do. 2. If the inferior Judges in the act of judging, were the Vicars, and Deputies of King Jehoshaphat, he would have said, Judge righteous judgement; Why? For the judgement ⟨p. 160⟩is mine, and if I the King were on the Bench, I would not respect persons, nor take gifts; and you judge for me the supreme Judge, as my Deputies: but the King saith, They judge not for man, but for the Lord. 3. If by this they were not Gods immediate Vicars, but the Vicars and Deputies of the King, then being mere servants, the King might command them to pronounce such a sentence, and not such a sentence as I may command my servant and deputy, in so far, as he is a servant and deputy, to say this, and say not this: but the King cannot limit the conscience of the inferior Judge, because the judgement is not the Kings, but the Lords. 4. The King cannot command any other to do that, as King; for the doing whereof, he hath no power from God himself, but the King hath no power from God to pronounce what sentence he pleaseth, because the judgement is not his own, but Gods: And though inferior Judges be sent of 1the King, and appointed by him to be Judges, and so have their external call from Gods deputy, the King; yet because judging is an act of conscience, as one mans conscience cannot properly be a deputy for another mans conscience, so neither can an inferior Judge, as a Judge, be a deputy for a King: therefore the inferior Judges have designation to their office from the King; but if they have from the King, that they are Judges, and be not Gods deputies, but the Kings, they could not be commanded to execute judgement for God, but for the King: and Deut. 1. 17. Moses appointed Judges, but not as his deputies to judge and give sentence, as subordinate to Moses: For the judgement (saith he) is the Lords, not mine. 6.