A92147:572
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.
2. It was Gods Oath, and God tied Judah to absolute subjection,1 ergo people may tie themselves. It followeth not, except you could make good this inference, God is absolute, ergo the King of Babylon may lawfully be absolute; this is a blasphemous consequence. 2. That Judah was to swear the Oath of absolute subjection in the latitude of the absoluteness of the Kings of Chaldea, I would see proved; ⟨p. 200⟩their absoluteness by the Chaldean Laws was to command murder, Idolatry, Daniel 3. 4, 5. and to make wicked Laws, Dan. 6. v. 7, 8. I believe Jeremiah commanded not absolute subjection in this sense. But the contrary, Jer. 10. v. 11. They were to swear the Oath in the point of suffering; but what if the King of Chaldea had commanded them all, the whole holy Seed, men, women and children, out of his Royal power, to give their necks all in one day to his sword, were they obliged by this Oath to prayers and tears, and only to suffer? and was it against the Oath of God to defend themselves by Arms? I believe the Oath did not oblige to such absolute subjection, and though they had taken Arms in their own lawful defence, according to the Law of Nature, they had not broken the Oath of God. The Oath was not a tie to an absolute subjection of all and every one, either to worship Idols, or then to fly, or suffer death. Now the Service-book commanded in the Kings absolute authority all Scotland to commit grosser Idolatry, in the intention of the work, if not in the intention of the Commander, then was in Babylon. (We read not that the King of Babylon pressed the consciences of Gods people to Idolatry) or that all should either fly the Kingdom, and leave their inheritances to Papists and Prelates, or then come under the mercy of the sword of Papists and Atheists by sea or land. 3. God may command against the Law of Nature; and Gods Commandment maketh subjection lawful; so as men may not now, being under that Law of God, defend themselves. What then? Ergo we owe subjection to absolute Princes, and their power must be a lawful power, it no ways is consequent. Gods Commandment by Jeremiah made the subjection of Judah lawful, and without that Commandment they might have taken Arms against the King of Babylon, as they did against the Philistines, and Gods Commandment maketh the Oath lawful.