A92147:498
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.
That is not Pauls argument, to prove it unlawful to resist Kings, as Kings, and doing their office, because of the sanctity of their Majesty, that is, as the man intendeth, because of the supreme absolute and illimited power that God hath given him. But this is a begging of the question, and all one as to say, the King may not be resisted, because he may not be resisted: for sanctity of Majesty, if we believe Royalists, includeth essentially an absolute supremacy of power, whereby they are above the reach of all thrones, laws, powers, or resistance on Earth. But the Argument is, Resist not, because the Power is of God. But the inferior Magistrates power is of God. 2. Resist not, because you resist Gods ordinance, in resisting the Judge: But the inferior Judge is Gods ordinance, Rom. 13. 1. Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chro. 19. 6. 3. Mr. Symmons saith, all Judges on earth are from the Kings, as stars have their light from the Sun. I answer, 1. Then Aristocracy were unlawful, for it hath not its power1 from Monarchy. Had the Lords of the Philistines, have the States of Holland no power but from a Monarchy? Name the Monarch. Have the Venetians any power from a King? Indeed our Prelate saith from Augustine, Confess. lib. 3. cap. 8. Generale pactum est societatis humana, obedire Regibus suis: It is an universal covenant of humane society, and a dictate of nature, that men obey their Kings. I beg the favour of Sectaries (saith •he) to show as much for Aristocracy and Democracy. Now all other governments to bellies borne at Court, are the inventions of men. But I can show that same warrant for the one as for the other, because it is as well the dictate of nature, that People obey their Judges and Rulers, as it is that they obey their Kings. And Austin speaketh of all Judges, in that place, though he name Kings; for Kingly government is no more of the law of nature, then Aristocracy or Democracy: nor ⟨p. 169⟩are any borne Judges, or Subjects at all: There is a natural aptitude in all to either of these, for the conservation of nature, and that is all. Let us see that men naturally inclining to Government, incline