A92147:495
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.
9. Arg. Those powers which differ gradually, and per magis & 1minus, by more and less only, differ not in nature and species, and constitute not Kings and inferior Judges different univocally. But the power of Kings and inferior Judges are such, therefore Kings and Inferior Judges differ not univocally. That the powers are the same in nature, I prove 1. by the specifice acts, and formal object of the power of both, for 1. both are power ordained of God, Rom. 13. 1. to resist either, is to resist the ordinance of God, v. 2. both are by Office a terror to evil works, v. •3.2 3. both are the Ministers of God for good. 2. Though the King send and give a call to the inferior Judge, that doth no more make the inferior Judges powers in nature and species different, then Ministers of the Word called by Ministers of the Word, have Offices different in nature. Timotheus Office to be Preacher of the Word differeth not in specie, from the Office of the Presbytery, which laid hands on him, though their Office by extension, be more then Timothy's Office. 3. The peoples power is put forth in […] ⟨p. 164⟩[…] ⟨p. 165⟩⟨p. 166⟩those same acts, when they choose one to be their King and supreme Governor, and when they set up an Aristocratical Government, and choose many, or more then one, to be their Governors▪ for the formal object of one or many Governors is Justice and Religion, as they are to be advanced. 2. The form and manner of their operation is, brachio seculari, by a coactive power, and by the sword. 3. The formal acts of King and many Judges in Aristocracy, are these same, the defending of the poor and needy from violence, the conservation of a Community in a peaceable and a godly life, 31 Tim. 2. 2