A92147:749
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.
5. Bodine proveth, de Rep. l. 2. c. 5. p. 221. that Emperors at first1 were but Princes of the Commonwealth: and that Sovereignty remained still in the Senate and people. Marius Salomonius, a learned Roman Civilian, wrote sixe books de Principatu, to refute the supremacy of Emperors above the State. Ferd. Vasq. illust. quest. part. 1. l. 1. n. 21. proveth, that the Prince, by Royal dignity, leaveth not off to be a Citizen, a member of the Politic body; and not a King, but a Keeper of Laws.
5. Bodine proveth, de Rep. l. 2. c. 5. p. 221. that Emperors at first1 were but Princes of the Commonwealth: and that Soveraigntie remained still in the Senate and people. Marius Salomonius, a learned Romane Civilian, wrote sixe bookes de Principatu, to refute the supremacie of Emperors above the State. Ferd. Vasq. illust. quest. part. 1. l. 1. n. 21. proveth, that the Prince, by Royall dignitie, leaveth not off to be a Citizen, a member of the Politique body; and not a King, but a Keeper of Lawes.
- 1Arg. 5. A King remaineth a man, and a social creature.Arg. 5. A King remaineth a man, and a sociall creature.
Hence, 6. The Prince remaineth, even being a Prince, a social creature, a Man, as well as a King; one who must buy, sell, promise, contract, dispose: Ergo, he is not Regula regulans, but under rule of law: for impossible it is, if the King can, in a political way, live as a member of society, and do and perform acts of policy, and so perform them, as he may by his office, buy, and not pay; promise, and vow, and swear to men, and not perform, nor be obliged to men to render a reckoning of his Oath, and kill and destroy, and yet in Curia politicae societatis, in the Court of humane policy, be free: and that he may give inheritances, as just rewards of virtue and well-doing, and take them away again. Yea, seeing these sins that are not punishable before men, are not sins before men: If all the sins and oppressions of a Prince be so above the punishment that men can inflict, they are not sins before men, by which means the King is loosed from all guiltiness of the sins against the Second Table: for, the ratio formalis, the formal reason, why