A92147:740
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. 6. There be some Laws made in favour of the King as King, as to pay tribute. The King must be above this Law as King. True, but if a Noble man of a great rent be elected King, I know not, if he can be free from paying to himself as King, tribute, seeing ⟨p. 234⟩this is not allowed to the King by a Divine Law, Rom. 13. 6. as a reward of his work; and Christ expressly maketh tribute a thing due to Caesar as a King, Matth. 22. v. 21. There be some solemnities of the Law from which the King may be free, Prickman. D. c. 3. n. 78. and he relateth what they are, they are not Laws, but some circumstances belonging to Laws, and Prickman answereth to many places alleged out of the Lawyers, to prove the King to be above the Law, Maldorus in 12. Art. 4, 5, 9, 96. will have the 1Prince under that Law, which concerneth all the Common-wealth equally in regard of the matter, and that by the Law of nature, but he will not have him subject to these Laws which concerneth the subjects as subjects, as to pay tribute. He citeth Francisc. a Vict. Covarruvia, and Turrecremata. He also will have the Prince under positive Laws, such as not to transport victuals, not because the Law bindeth him as a Law. But because the making of the Law bindeth him, Tanquam conditio sine qua non, even as he who teacheth another that he should not steal, he should not steal himself, Rom. 2. But the truth is, this is but a branch of the Law of Nature, that I should not commit Adultery, and Theft, and Sacrilege, and such sins as nature condemneth, if I shall condemn them in others, and doth not prove that the King is under the coactive power of Civill Laws.
Assert. 6. There be some Lawes made in favour of the King as King, as to pay tribute. The King must be above this Law as King. True, but if a Noble man of a great rent be elected King, I know not, if he can be free from paying to himselfe as King, tribute, seeing ⟨p. 234⟩this is not allowed to the King by a Divine Law,