A92147:628
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.
Answ. The People being the fountain of the King, must rather be the fountain of Laws. 2. It is false, that no man maketh laws to himself. Those who teach others, teach themselves also, 1 Tim. 2. 12. 1 Cor. 14. 34. though Teaching be an act of authority. But they agree to the penalty of the Law secondarily only; and so doth the King, who, as a father, doth not will evil of punishment to his children, but by a consequent will. 3. The King is the only Supreme, in the power ministerial of executing laws: but this is a derived power, so as no one man is above him; but in the fountain-power of Royalty, the States are above him.
Answ. The People being the fountaine of the King, must rather be the fountaine of Lawes. 2. It is false, that no man maketh lawes to himselfe. Those who teach others, teach themselves also, 1 Tim. 2. 12. 1 Cor. 14. 34. though Teaching be an act of authoritie. But they agree to the penaltie of the Law secondarily only; and so doth the King, who, as a father, doth not will evill of punishment to his children, but by a consequent will. 3. The King is the only Supreme, in the power ministeriall of executing lawes: but this is a derived power, so as no one man is above him; but in the fountaine-power of Royaltie, the States are above him.
5. The Civil law is clear, that the laws of the Emperor have force only from this fountain, because the People have transferred their power to the King. Lib. 1. digest. tit. 4. de constit. Princip. leg. 1. sic Ulpian. Quod Principi placuit, (loquitur de Principe formaliter, qua Princeps est, non qua est homo) legis habet vigorem, utpote cum lege ⟨p. 209⟩Regia, quae de imperio ejus lata est. populus •i, & in eum, omne suum imperium & potestatem conferat. Yea, the Emperor himself may be convened before the Prince Elector. Aurea Bulla Carol. 4. Imper. c. 5. The King of France may be convened before the Senate of Paris. The States may resist a Tyrant, as Bossius saith, de Principe, & privileg. ejus, n. 55. Paris de puteo, in tract. syno. tit. de excess. Reg. c. 3. Divines acknowledge that Elijah rebuked the halting of Israel betwixt God and Baal, that their Princes permitted Baals Priests to converse with the King. And is not this the sin of the Land, that they suffer their King to worship Idols? and therefore the Land is punished for the sins of Manasseh, as Knox observeth in his Dispute with Lethington, where he proveth that the States of Scotland should not permit the Queen of Scotland to have her abominable Mass: Hist. of Scotland, l. 4. p. 379. edit. an. 1644. Surely the power or Sea-Prerogative of a sleepy or mad Pilot to split the