A92147:580
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.
Obj. 5. In an absolute Monarchy there is not a resignation of1 men to any will as will, but to the reasonable will of the Monarch, which having the law of reason to direct it, is kept from injurious acts.
- 1Monarch. Governa. part 2. c. 1. pag. 31.
Ans. If reason be a sufficient restraint, and if God hath laid no other restraint upon some lawful King, ye reason, Then is Magistracy a lame, a needless ordinance of God, for all Mankind hath reason to keep themselves from injuries, and so there is no need of Judges or Kings to defend them from either doing or suffering injuries. But certainly this must be admirable. If God as Author of nature should make the Lyon King of all beasts, the Lyon remaining a devouring beast, and should ordain by nature all the sheep and Lambs to come and submit their corps to him, by instinct of nature, and to be eaten at his will, and then say, The nature of a beast in a Lyon is a sufficient restraint to keep the Lyon from devouring Lambs. Certainly a King being a sinful man, and having no restraint on his power, but reason, he may think it reason to allow rebels to kill, drown, hang, torture to death an hundred thousand Protestants, men, women, infants in the womb, and sucking babes, as is clear in Pharaoh, Manasseh and other Princes.
Ans. If reason be a sufficient restraint, and if God hath laid no other restraint upon some lawfull King, yee reason, Then is Migistracy a lame, a needlesse ordinance of God, for all Mankind hath reason to keepe themselves from injuries, and so there is no need of Iudges or Kings to defend them from either doing or suffering injuries. But certainly this must be admirable. If God as Author of nature should make the Lyon King of all beasts, the Lyon remaining a devouring beast, and should ordaine by nature all the sheepe and Lambs to come and submit their corps to him, by instinct of nature, and to be eaten at his will, and then say, The nature of a beast in a Lyon is a sufficient restraint to keepe the Lyon from devouring Lambs. Certainly a King being a sinfull man, and having no restraint on his power, but reason, he may thinke it reason to allow rebells to kill, drowne, hang, torture to death an hundred thousand Protestants, men, women, infants in the wombe, and sucking babes, as is clere in Pharaoh, Manasseh and other Princes.