A92147:857
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 certainly if the cause and reason in point of duty Moral, and of conscience before God remain in Kings, to wit, that while they are enemies and persecutors as Nero was, their Royal Dignity given them of God ⟨p. 275⟩remaineth, then subjection upon that ground is lawful, and resistance unlawful. Ans. It is true so long as Kings remain Kings, subjection is due to them because Kings, but that is not the question. But the1 question is, if subjection be due to them, when they use their power unlawfully and Tyrannically. What ever David did, though he was a King, he did it not as King, he deflowered not Bathsheba as King, and Bathsheba might with bodily resistance and violence lawfully have resisted King David, though Kingly Power, remained in him, while he should thus attempt to commit Adultery; else David might have said to Bathsheba, Because I am the Lords Anointed, it is rebellion in thee a subject to oppose any bodily violence to my act of forcing of thee, it is unlawful to thee to cry for help, for if any shall offer violently to rescue thee from me, he resisteth the ordinance of God. Subjection is due to Nero as an Emperor, but not any subjection is due to him in the burning of Rome, and torturing of Christians, except you say that Nero's power abused in these acts of cruelty was, 1. A power from God. 2. An ordinance of God. 3. That in these, he was the Minister of God for the good of the Common-wealth. Because some believed Christians were free from the yoke of Magistracy, and that the dignity it self was unlawful. And 2. because, ch. 12. he had set down the lawful Church Rulers, and in this and the following chapter the duties of brotherly love of one toward another. So here ch. 13. he teacheth that all Magistrates, suppose Heathen, are to be obeyed and submitted unto in all things, so far as they are Ministers of God. Arnisaeus objecteth to Buchan. If we are by this place to subject our selves to every power in abstracto, then also to a power contrary to the truth, and to a power of a King exceeding the limits of a King, for 2such a power is a power, and we are not to distinguish where the Law distinguisheth not.
And certainely if the cause and reason in point of duty Morall, and of conscience before God remaine in Kings, to wit, that while they are enemies and persecutors as Nero was, their Royall Dignity given them of God