A92147:755
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.
4. They are as orderly a body Politic, to unmake a Tyrannous Commander, as they were to make a just Governor. The Prelate saith, It is alike to conceive a Politic body without a Governor, as to conceive the natural body without a Head. He meaneth, None of them can be conceivable. I am not of his mind. When Saul was dead, Israel was a perfect Politic body: and the Prelate, if he be not very obtuse in his head, (as this hungry piece stolen from others, showeth him to be) may conceive a visible Political society performing a Political action, 2 Sam. 5. 1, 2, 3. making David King ⟨p. 239⟩at a visible and conceivable place, at Hebron; and making a Covenant with him. And that they wanted not all Governors, is nothing to make them Chimera's unconceivable: For when so many families before Nimrod, were governed only by fathers of families, and they agreed to make either a King, or other Governors, a Head, or Heads over themselves: though the several families had government, yet these consociated families had no government; and yet so conceivable a Politic body, as if Maxwell would have compeared amongst them, and called them a disorderly rout, or an unconceivable Chimera, they should have made the Prelate know, that Chimera's can knock down Prelates. Neither is a King the life of a Politic body, as the soul is of the natural body: The body createth not the soul: but Israel created Saul King; and when he was dead, they made David King, and so, under God, many Kings, as they succeeded, till the Messiah came. No natural body can make souls to it self by succession; Nor can Seas create new Prelates always.
4. They are as orderly a body Politique, to unmake a Tyrannous Commander, as they were to make a just Governonr. The Prelate saith, It is alike to conceive a Politique body without a Governour, as to conceive the naturall body without a Head. He meaneth, None of them can be conceivable. I am not of his minde. When Saul was dead, Israel was a perfect Politique body: and the Prelate, if he be not very obtuse in his head, (as this hungry peece stollen from others, sheweth him to be) may conceive a visible Politicall societie performing a Politicall action, 2 Sam. 5. 1, 2, 3. making David King ⟨p. 239⟩