A92147:511
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.
are but sent by the King, ergo, they are so Judges, as they are but messengers, and are to adhere to the Royal pleasure of the Prince that sent them.
are but sent by the King, ergo, they are so Iudges, as they are but messengers, and are to adhere to the Royall pleasure of the Prince that sent them.
Ans. 1. The Ambassador is not to accept an unjust Embassy,1 that fighteth with the Law of nature. 2. The Ambassador and the Judge differ, the Ambassador is the King and States Deputy, both in his call to the Embassy, and also in the matter of the Embassy; for which cause he is not to transgress what is given to him in Writ, as a Rule; but the inferior Judges, and the high Court of Parliament, though they were the Kings Deputies (as the Parliament is in no sort his Deputy, but he their Deputy Royal) yet it is only in respect of their call, not in respect of the matter of their Commission, for the King may send the Judge to judge in general according to the Law, and Justice and Religion, but he cannot depute the sentence, and command the conscience of the Judge to pronounce such a sentence, not such, the inferior Judge in the act of judging is as independent, and his conscience as immediately subject to God, as the King, therefore the King owes to every sentence his approbative suffrage as King, but not his either directive suffrage, nor his imperative suffrage of absolute pleasure, 6. If the King should sell his Country▪ and bring in a foreign Army, the estates are to convene, to take course for the safety of the Kingdom. 7. If David exhort the Princes of Israel to help King Solomon in governing2 the Kingdom, in building the Temple, 2 Chron. 32. 3. Hezekiah took counsel with his Princes, and his mighty men in the matter of holding off the Assyrians, who were to invade the Land, if David