A92147:826
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.
It is not a sin for the people to take some power, even of doing good from the King, that ⟨p. 259⟩he solely, and by himself, shall not have power to pardon an involuntary homicide, without advice, and the judicial suffrages of the Council of the Kingdom, least he, instead of this, give pardons to Robbers, to abominable Murderers, and in so doing, the people robbeth not the King of the power that God gave him as King, nor ought the King to contend for a sole power in himself, of ministering justice to all; for God layeth not upon Kings, burdens unpossible, and God by Institution, hath denied to the King, all power of doing all good, because it is his Will that other Judges be sharers with the King in that power, Num. 14. 16 Deut. 1. 14. 15, 16, 17. 1 Pet. 2. 14. Rom. 13. 1, 2, 3, 4. And therefore the Duke of Venice to me cometh nearest to the King, moulded by God, Deut. 17. in respect of power, de jure, of any King I know in Europe. And in point of conscience, the inferior Judge discerning a murderer, and bloody man to die, may in foro conscientiae, despise the Kings unjust pardon, and resist the Kings force by his sword and coactive power that God hath given him, and put to death the bloody murderer, and he sinneth, if he do not this; for to me it is clear, The King cannot judge so justly and understandingly of a murderer in Scotland, as a Judge, to whom God hath committed the sword in Scotland: Nor hath the Lord laid that unpossible burden on a King to judge so of a murder four hundred miles, removed from the King, as the Judge nearer to him, as is clear by Num. 14 16. 1 Sam. 7. 15, 16, 17. The King should go from place to place, and judge; and whereas it is unpossible to him, to go through three Kingdoms, he should appoint faithful Judges, who may not be resisted, no not by the King.