A92147:771
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.
But the simple meaning is, Against thee only have I sinned, as my eye witness and immediate beholder; and therefore he addeth, and have done this evil in thy sight. 2. Against thee only, as my Judge, that thou mayest be justified when thou judgest, as clear from all unrighteousness, when thou 1shalt send the sword on my house. 3. Against thee, O Lord only, who canst wash me, and pardon me, v. 1, 2. And if this (thee only) exclude all together, Uriah, Bathsheba, and the Law of the Judges, as if he had sinned against none of these in their kind, then is the King because a King free, not only from a punishing Law of man, but from the duties of the second Table simply, and so a King cannot be under the best and largest half of the Law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self. 2. He shall not need to say, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that sin against us; for there is no reason from the nature of sin, and the nature of the Law of God, why we can say more the subjects and sons sin against the King and Father, then to say the Father and King sin against the sons and subjects. 3. By this, the King killing his Father Jesse, should sin against God, but not break the fist Command, nor sin against his father. 4. God should in vain forbid fathers to provoke their children to wrath.
But the simple meaning is, Against thee only have I sinned, as my eye witnesse and imediate beholder; and therfore he addeth, and have done this evill in thy sight. 2. Against thee only, as my Iudge, that thou maist be justified when thou judgest, as cleare from all unrighteousnesse, when thou 1shalt send the sword on my house. 3. Against thee, O Lord only, who canst wash me, and pardon me, v. 1, 2. And if this (thee only) exclude all together, Ʋriah, Bathsheba, and the Law of the Iudges, as if he had sinned against none of these in their kind, then is the King because a King free, not only from a punishing Law of man, but from the duties of the second Table simply, and so a King cannot be under the best and largest halfe of the Law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe. 2. He shall not need to say, Forgive us our sinnes, as we forgive them that sin against us; for there is no reason from the nature of sin, and the nature of the Law of God, why we can say more the subjects and sonnes sin against the King and Father, then to say the Father and King sin against the sonnes and subjects. 3. By this, the King killing his Father Iesse, should sin against God, but not breake the fist Command, nor sinne against his father. 4. God should in vaine forbid fathers to provoke their children to wrath.