A92147:838
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.
4. That which is given as a blessing and a favour, and a Scrine between1 the peoples liberty and their bondage, cannot be given of God, as a bondage, and slavery to the people. But the power of a King is given as a blessing, and favour of God to defend the poor and needy, to preserve both Tables of the Law, and to keep the people in their liberties from oppressing and treading one upon another. But so it is, that if such a power be given of God to a King, by which, Actu primo, he is invested of God, to do acts of Tyranny, and so to do them, that to resist him in th• most innocent way, which is self defence, must be a resisting of God, and Rebellion against the King, his Deputy, then hath God given a Royal power as incontrollable by mortal men, by any violence, as if God himself were immediately and personally resisted, when the King is resisted, and so this power shall be a power to wast and destroy irresistibly, and so in it self a plague and a curse; for it cannot be ordained both according to the intention and genuine formal effect, and intrinsical operation of the power to preserve the Tables of the Law, Religion and Liberty, Subjects and Laws, and also to destroy the same; but it is taught by Royalists that this power is for Tyranny, as well as for peaceable Government, because to resist this Royal Power put forth in Acts either ways, either in acts of Tyranny, or just Government, is to resist the Ordinance of God, as Royalists say, from Rom. 13. 1, 2, 3. And we know to resist Gods ordinances and Gods Deputy, formaliter, as his Deputy, is to resist God himself, 1 Sam. 8. 7. Mat. 10. 40. as if God were doing personally these Acts, that the King is doing, and it importeth as much as the King of Kings doth these Acts in, and through the Tyrant. Now it is blasphemy to think or say, that when a King is drinking the ⟨p. 263⟩blood of innocents, and wasting the Church of God, that God, if he were personally present, would commit these same acts of Tyranny, (God would avert such blasphemy) and that God in, and through the King, as his lawful Deputy, and Vicegerent in these acts of Tyranny, is wasting the poor Church of God.