A92147:729
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 there is no absolute power given to him to do what he listeth, as a man. And because,
2. God, in making Saul a King, doth not by any Royal stamp give him a power to sin, or to play the Tyrant; for which cause I1 expone these of the Law, Omnia sunt possibilia Regi, Imperator omnia potest. Baldus in §. F. de no. for▪ fidel. in F. & in prima constitut. C. col. 2. Chassanaeus in Catalogue. gloriae mundi. par. 5. considerat. 24. & tanta est ejus celsitudo, ut non posset ei imponi lex in regno suo. Curt. in consol. 65. col. 6. ad. F. Petrus Rebuff. Notab. 3. repet. l. unicae. C. de sentent. quae pro eo quod nu. 17. pag. 363. All these go no otherwise but thus, The King can do all things which by Law he can do, and that holdeth him: id possumus quod jure possumus. ⟨p. 232⟩And therefore the King cannot be above the Covenant and Law made betwixt him and his people, at his Coronation-oath; for then the Covenant and Oath should bind him only, by a natural obligation, as he is a man, not by a civil or politic obligation, as he is a King.
2. God, in making Saul a King, doth not by any Royall stamp give him a power to sin, or to play the Tyrant; for which cause I1 expone these of the Law, Omnia sunt possibilia Regi, Imperator omnia potest. Baldus in §. F. de no. for▪ fidel. in F. & in prima constitut. C. col. 2. Chassanaeus in Catalog. gloriae mundi. par. 5. considerat. 24. & tanta est ejus celsitudo, ut non posset ei imponi lex in regno suo. Curt. in consol. 65. col. 6. ad. F. Petrus Rebuff. Notab. 3. repet. l. unicae. C. de sentent. quae pro eo quod nu. 17. pag. 363. All these go no otherwise but thus, The King can do all things which by Law he can do, and that holdeth him: id possumus quod jure possumus. ⟨p. 232⟩