A92147:737
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.
Assert. 5. The King cannot but he subject to the coactive power of Fundamental Laws: Because this is a Fundamental Law, that the1 free Estates lay upon the King, that all the power that they give to the King as King, is for the good and safety of the people; and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects, he doth it not as King.
Assert. 5. The King cannot but he subject to the coactive power of Fundamentall Laws: Because this is a Fundamentall Law, that the1 free Estates lay upon the King, that all the power that they give to the King as King, is for the good and safety of the people; and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects, he doth it not as King.
- 1The King under the fundamental Laws.The King under the fundamentall Laws.
2. The Law saith, Qui habet potestatem constituendi etiam & jus adimendi. l. nemo. 37. l. 21. de reg. jure. Those who have power to make, have power to unmake Kings.
3. What ever the King doth as King, that he doth by a power ⟨p. 233⟩borrowed from, (or by a fiduciary power which is his by trust) the Estates, who made him King. He must then be nothing but an eminent servant of the State, in the punishing of others. If therefore he be unpunishable, it is not so much because his Royal power is above all Law-coaction, as because one & the same man cannot be both the punisher and the punished, and this is a Physical incongruity rather then a Moral absurdity. So the Law of God layeth a duty on the inferior Magistrate, to use the sword against the murderer, and that by virtue of his Office, but I much doubt if for that, he is to use the sword against himself in the case of Murder, for this is a truth I purpose to make good; that suffering as suffering according