A92147:750
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.
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 ⟨p. 238⟩the Judge, by warrant from God, condemneth, in the Court of men, the guilty man, is, because he hath sinned against humane society, either through the scandal of blasphemy, or through other heinous sins he hath defiled the Land. Now this is incident to the King, as well as to some other sinful man.
Hence, 6. The Prince remaineth, even being a Prince, a sociall 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 politicall way, live as a member of societie, and doe and performe acts of policie, and so performe them, as he may by his office, buy, and not pay; promise, and vow, and sweare to men, and not performe, 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 policie, be free: and that he may give inheritances, as just rewards of vertue and well-doing, and take them away againe. Yea, seeing these sinnes that are not punishable before men, are not sinnes before men: If all the sinnes and oppressions of a Prince be so above the punishment that men can inflict, they are not sinnes before men, by which meanes the King is loosed from all guiltinesse of the sinnes against the Second Table: for, the ratio formalis, the formall reason, why ⟨p. 238⟩