A92147:709
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. Prerogative is either a power to do good, or ill, or both: If the first be said, it must be limited by the End, and Law, for which it is ordained. A mean is no farther a mean, but in so far as it conduceth to the end; the safety of all. If the second be admitted, It is Licence and Tyranny, not power from God. If the third be said, both reasons plead against this, that Prerogative should be the Kings end in the present wars.
2. Prerogative is either a power to doe good, or ill, or both: If the first be said, it must be limited by the End, and Law, for which it is ordained. A meane is no farther a meane, but in so far as it conduceth to the end; the safetie of all. If the second be admitted, It is Licence and Tyrannie, not power from God. If the third be said, both reasons plead against this, that Prerogative should be the Kings end in the present warres.
3. Prerogative being a power given by the mediation of the people; yea, suppose (which is false) that it were given immediately of God; yet it not a thing for which the King should raise war against his Subjects: for God will ask no more of the King, then he giveth to him: The Lord reapeth not, where he soweth not. If the Militia, ⟨p. 229⟩and other things, be ordered hitherto for the holding off Irish and Spanish invasion by Sea, and so for the good of the Land, seeing the King, in his own person, cannot make use of the Militia; he is to rejoice that his Subjects are defended. The King cannot answer to God for the justice of war on his part: It is not a case of conscience that the King should shed blood for, to wit, because the under-Officers are such men, and not others of his choosing; seeing the Kingdom is defended sufficiently, except where Cavaliers destroy it. And to me, this is an unanswerable argument, that the Cavaliers destroy not the Kingdoms for this Prerogative Royal, as the principal ground; but for a deeper design, even for that which was working by Prelates and Malignants, before the late troubles in both Kingdoms.
3. Prerogative being a power given by the mediation of the people; yea, suppose (which is false) that it were given immediately of God; yet it not a thing for which the King should raise war against his Subjects: for God will aske no more of the King, then he giveth to him: The Lord reapeth not, where he soweth not. If the Militia,