A92147:723
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.
Lex, Rex. › Question 26: QUEST. XXVI. Whether the King be above the Law or no?
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.
1. Because the King by nature is not King, as is proved; Ergo, he must be King by a politic constitution and Law, and so the Law in that consideration is above the King, because it is from a civil Law, that there is a King, rather then any other kind of Governor.
1. Because the King by nature is not King, as is proved; Ergo, he must be King by a politique constitution and Law, and so the Law in that consideration is above the King, because it is from a civil Law, that there is a King, rather then any other kinde of Governour.
2. It is by Law, that amongst many hundred men, this man is King, not this man; and because, by the which a thing is constituted, by the same thing it is, or may be dissolved; therefore,
3. As a Community finding such and such qualifications as the Law requireth to be in a King, in this man, not in this man; therefore upon Law-ground,
5. They make him a King, and upon Law-grounds and just demerit, they may unmake him again; for, what men voluntarily do upon condition, the condition being removed, they may undo again.