A92147:634
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.
3. The P. Prelate objecteth: The most you claim to Parliaments,1 is a coordinate power, which in law and reason run in equal terms, In Law, par in parem non habet imperium; an equal cannot judge an equal, much less may an inferior usurpeto judge a superior. Our Lord knew, gratiâ visionis, the woman taken in adultery, to be guilty; bat he would not sentence her: to teach us, not improbably, not to be both Judge and Witness. The Parliament are Judges, accusers, and witnesses against the King in their own cause, against the Imperial laws.
3. The P. Prelate objecteth: The most you claime to Parliaments,1 is a coordinate power, which in law and reason run in equall tearmes, In Law, par in parem non habet imperium; an equall cannot judge an equall, much lesse may an inferiour usurpeto judge a superiour. Our Lord knew, gratiâ visionis, the woman taken in adulterie, to be guilty; bat he would not scntence her: to teach us, not improbably, not to be both Judge and Witnesse. The Parliament are Judges, accusers, and witnesses against the King in their owne cause, against the Imperiall lawes.
- 1Sac. sanct. maj. •. •. p. 103, 104
Ans. 1. The Parliament is coordinate ordinarily with the King,1 in the power of making Laws: but the coordination on the Kings part, is by derivation; on the Parliaments part, originaliter & fontaliter, as in the fountain. 2. In ordinary there is coordination: but if the King turn Tyrant, the Estates are to use their fountain power. And that of the Law, Par in parem, &c. is no better from his Pen, that stealeth all he hath, then from Barclaius, Grotius, Arnisaeus, Blackwood, &c. It is cold and sour. We hold the Parliament that made the King at Hebron, to be above their own creature the King. Barclaius saith more accurately, l. 5, cont. Monarch. p. 129. It is absurd, that the People should both be subject to the King, and command the King also.