A92147:517
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.
11. The special ground of Royalists is to make the King the absolute1 supreme, giving all life and power to the Parliament and States, and of mere grace convening them. So Ferne, the Author of Ossorianum, p. 69. but this ground is false, because the Kings power is fiduciary, and put in his hand upon trust, and must be ministerial, and borrowed from these who put him in trust, and so his ⟨p. 178⟩power must be less, and derived from the Parliament: but the Parliament hath no power in trust from the King, because the time was, when the man who is the King, had no power, and the Parliament had the same power that they now have; and now when the King hath received power from them, they have the whole power that they had before. That is, to make Laws, and resigned no power to the King, but to execute Laws, and his convening of them is an Act of Royal Duty, which he oweth to the Parliament by virtue of his Office, and is not an act of grace, for an act of grace is an act of free Will, and what the King doth of free Will, he may not do, and so he may never convene a Parliament. But when David, Solomon, Asa, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, Achas convened Parliaments, they convened Parliaments as Kings, and so Ex debito & virtute officii, out of debt and Royal Obligation, and if the King as the King, be Lex animata, a breathing and living Law, the King as King must do by obligation of Law, what he doth as King, and not from spontaneous and Arbitrary grace. 2. If the Scripture holds forth to us a King in Israel, and two Princes and Elders who made the King, and had power of life and death, as we have seen; then is there in Israel Monarchy tempered with Aristocracy; and if there were Elders and Rulers in every City, as the Scripture saith, here was also Aristocracy and Democracy. And for the warrant of the power of the Estates I appeal to Jurists, and to approved Authors. Argu. l. aliud. 160. §. 1. De Jur. Reg. l. 22. Mortuo de fidei. l. 11. 14. ad Mum. l. 3. 1. 4. Sigonius De Rep. Judaeor. l. 6. c. 7. Cornelius Bertramo, c. 12. Junius Brutus Vindic. contra. Tyrant. §. 2. Author Libelli de jur Magistrat. in subd. q. 6. Althus. Politic. c. 18. Calvin Institut. l. 4. c. 20. Pareus Comment. in Rom. 13. Pet. Martyr in Lib. Judic. c. 3. Joan. Marianus de rege Lib. 1. c. 7. Hottoman de jure Antiq. Regni Gallici l. 1. c. 12. Buchanan De jure Regni apud Scotos.