A92147:849
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.
and so cannot be resisted without sin. But the man who is the Ruler, and commandeth things unlawful, and killeth the innocent; carieth the Papists and Prelates sword, to execute, not the righteous judgement of the Lord, upon the ill-doer; but his own private revenge, upon him that doth well: Ergo, the Man may be resisted, the Office may not be resisted: and they must be two different things. 8. We must needs be subject to the Royal office, for conscience, v. 5. by reason of the fifth Commandment. But we must not needs be subject to the man who is King, if he command things unlawful: for D. Ferne warranteth us to resist, if the Ruler invade us suddenly; 2. Without colour of Law or Reason; 3. Unavoidably. And Winzetus, and Barclay, and Grotius, as before I cited, give us leave to resist a King, turning a cruel Tyrant. But Paul, Rom. 13. forbiddeth us to resist the Power, in Abstracto; Ergo, it must be the Man, in concreto, that we must resist. 9. Those ⟨p. 269⟩we may not resist, to whom we owe tribute, as a reward of the onerous work, on which they, as Ministers of God, do attend continually. But we owe not tribute to the King as a man; for then should we be indebted tribute to all men: but as a King, to whom the wages of tribute is due, as to a Princely workman, a King as a King: ergo, the Man and the King are different. 10. We owe fear and honour as due, to be rendered to the man who is King, because he is a King, not because he is a man; for it is the highest fear and honour due to any mortal man, which is due to the King, as King. 11. The Man, and the inferior Judge are different: and we cannot, by this Text, resist the inferior Judge, as a Judge, but we resist the ordinance of God, as the Text proveth. But Cavaliers resist the inferior Judges as men, and have killed divers members of both Houses of Parliament: but they will not say, that they killed them as Judges, but as Rebels. If therefore to be a Rebel, as a wicked Man, and to be a Judge, are differenced thus: then, to be a Man, and to commit some acts of Tyranny; and to be the supreme Judge and King, are two different things. 12. Mr. Knox, Hist. of Scotland, l. 2.1 The Congregation, in a letter to the Nobility, say: There is great difference betwixt the Authority, which is Gods Ordinance, and the Persons of those who are placed in authority.