A92147:747
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.
Then a King may be resisted, and yet those who resist them, do not incur damnation; the contrary where of Royalists endeavour to prove from Rom. 13. 3. Then the people may un-king one who was a King. But 4. I would know who taketh that [Greek or Hebrew], from him, whereby he is a King, that beam ⟨p. 237⟩of Divine majesty? Not the people; because Royalists say, they neither can give, nor take away Royal dignity, and so they cannot un-king him.
Then a King may be resisted, and yet those who resist them, doe not incurre damnation; the contrary where of Royalists endeavour to prove from Rom. 13. 3. Then the people may un-king one who was a King. But 4. I would know who taketh that 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, from him, whereby he is a King, that beame ⟨p. 237⟩of Divine majestie? Not the people; because Royalists say, they neither can give, nor take away Royall dignitie, and so they cannot un-king him.
4. The more Will be in the consent▪ (saith Ferd. Vasquez, l. 1. c. 41.)1 the obligation is the stricter. So▪ doubled words (saith the Law, l. 1. §. 13. n. 13.) oblige more strictly. And all laws of Kings, who are rational fathers, and so lead us by Laws, as by rational means to peace and external happiness; are contracts of King and People. Omnis lex sponsio & contractus Reip. §. 1. Just. de ver. relig. Now the King at his Coronation-covenant with the people, giveth a most intense consent, an Oath, to be a keeper and preserver of all good Laws: and so hardly he can be freed from the strictest obligation that Law can impose: And if he keep Laws by office, he is a mean to preserve Laws; and no mean can be superior and above the end, but inferior thereunto.