A92147:790
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.
All Divines know, that Pharaoh his Princes, and the Egyptians, were his Peers and People, •nd that Israel were not his native Subjects, but a number of strangers, who by the laws of the King and Princes, by the means of Joseph, had gotten the land of Goshen for their dwelling, and liberty to serve the God of Abraham, to whom they prayed in their bondage, Exod. 2. 23, 24. and they were not to serve the Gods of Egypt, nor were of the Kings Religion: And therefore his Argument is thus: A number of poor exiled strangers under King Pharaoh, who were not Pharaohs Princes and Peers, could not restrain the Tyranny of King Pharaoh: Ergo, the three Estates in a free Kingdom may not restrain the Arbitrary power of a King.
All Divines know, that Pharaoh his Princes, and the Egyptians, were his Peeres and People, •nd that Israel were not his native Subjects, but a number of strangers, who by the lawes of the King and Princes, by the meanes of Joseph, had gotten the land of Goshen for their dwelling, and libertie to serve the God of Abraham, to whom they prayed in their bondage, Exod. 2. 23, 24. and they were not to serve the Gods of Egypt, nor were of the Kings Religion: And therefore his Argument is thus: A number of poore exiled strangers under King Pharaoh, who were not Pharaohs Princes and Peeres, could not restraine the Tyrannie of King Pharaoh: Ergo, the three Estates in a free Kingdome may not restraine the Arbitrarie power of a King.
2. The Prelate must prove that God gave a Royal and Kingly power to King Pharaoh, due to him by virtue of his Kingly calling, (according as Royalists expone 1 Sam. 8. 9, 11.) to kill all the male children of Israel, to make slaves of themselves, and compel them to work in brick and clay, while their lives were a burden to them: And that if a Romish Catholic, Mary of England, should kill all the male Children of Protestants, by the hands of Papists, at the Queens commandment, and make bondslaves of all the Peers, Judges, and three Estates, who made her a free Princess: yet notwithstanding that Mary had sworn to maintain the Protestant Religion; they were to suffer, and not to defend themselves. But if God give Pharaoh a power to kill all Israel, so as they could not control it; then God giveth to a King a Royal power by office to sin: only the Royalist saveth God from being the author of sin, in this, that God gave the power to sin, but yet with this limitation, that the Subjects should not resist this power. 2. He must prove