A92147:807
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.
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 our second Assertion is, That the Kings power of exponing1 the Law, is a mere ministerial power, and he hath no dominion of any absolute Royal Power, to expone the Law as he will, and to put such a sense and meaning of the Law as he pleaseth.
Hence our second Assertion is, That the Kings power of exponing1 the Law, is a meere ministeriall power, and he hath no dominion of any absolute Royall Power, to expone the Law as he will, and to put such a sense and meaning of the Law as he pleaseth.
- 1The King not the authentic peremptory and Lordly interpreter of the Law.The King not the authentick peremtory and Lordly interpreter of the Law.
1. Because Saul maketh a Law, 1 Sam. 14. 24. Cursed be the man that tasteth any food till night, that the King may be avenged on his enemies, the Law according to the letter was bloody, but according1 ⟨p. 254⟩to the intent of the Law-giver, and substance of the Law profitable, for the end was that the enemies should be pursued with all speed. But King Sauls exponing the Law after a Tyrannical way, against the intent of the Law, which is the Diamond and Pearl of all Laws, the safety of the innocent people, was justly resisted by the people, who violently hindered innocent Jonathan to be killed. Whence it is clear, that the people and Princes put on the Law its true sense and meaning, for Jonathans tasting of a little honey, though as it was against that sinful and precipitate circumstance a rash oath, yet it was not against the substance and true intent of the Law, which was the peoples speedy pursuit of the enemy. Whence it is clear, that the people including the Princes, hath a ministerial power to expone the Law aright, and according to its genuine intent, and that the King as King hath no absolute power to expone the Law as he pleaseth.