A92147:520
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.
QUEST. XXII. Whether the power of the King as King be absolute, or dependent and limited by Gods first mould and pattern of a King?
QUEST. XXII. Whether the power of the King as King be absolute, or dependent and limited by Gods first mould and paterne of a King?
Doctor Ferne showeth us it was never his purpose to plead for1 absoluteness of an Arbitrary commandment, free from all Moral restraint laid on the power by Gods Law; but only he striveth for a power in the King that cannot be resisted by the subject. But truly we never disputed with Royalists of any absolute power in the King, free from Moral subjection to Gods Law 1. Because any bond that Gods Law imposeth on the King, it cometh wholly from God, and the nature of a Divine Law, and not from any voluntary2 contract, or covenant, either express, or tacito, betwixt the King and the people who made him King, for if he fail against such a covenant, though he should exceed the cruelty of a King, or a man, and become a Lion and a Nero, a Mother-killer, he should in all his inhumanity and breach of covenant be countable to God, not to any man on earth. 2. To dispute with Royalists, if Gods Law lay any Moral restraint upon the King, nor to dispute whether the King be a rational man, or no; and whether he can sin against God, and shall cry in the day of Gods wrath (if he be a wicked Prince) Hills fall on us, and cover us, as it is Revel. 6. 15, 16. and whether Tophet be prepared for all workers of iniquity; and certainly I justify the School-men in that question: Whether or no God could have created a rational creature, such a one as by nature