A92147:859
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.
Mr. Symmons. Is authority subjected solely in the Kings Law, and1 no whit in his Person, though put upon him both by God and Man? Or, is Authority only the subject; and the Person exercising the Authority, ⟨p. 276⟩a bare accident to that, being in it only more separably, as pride and folly are in a man: Then if one in Authority command, out of his own Will, and not by Law: if I neither actively, nor passively obey, J do not so much as resist abused Authority: and then must the Prince by his disorderly Will have quite lost his authority, and become like▪ another man; and yet his Authority has not fled from him.
Mr. Symmons. Is authoritie subjected solely in the Kings Law, and1 no whit in his Person, though put upon him both by God and Man? Or, is Authoritie only the subject; and the Person exercising the Authoritie, ⟨p. 276⟩a bare accident to that, being in it only more separably, as pride and folly are in a man: Then if one in Authoritie command, out of his own Will, and not by Law: if I neithr actively, nor passively obey, J doe not so much as resist abused Authoritie: and then must the Prince by his disorderly Will have quite lost his authoritie, and become like▪ another man; and yet his Authoritie has not fled from him.
- 1Loyal Subjects belief. pag. 49.Loyall Subiects beliefe. pag. 49.
Ans. If we speak accurately, neither the Man solely, nor his Power only is resisted: but the Man clothed with lawful habitual power, is resisted, in such and such acts flowing from an abused power. 2. It is an ignorant speech, to ask, Is Authority subjected solely in the Kings Law, and no whit in his Person? for the Authority hath all its power by Law, not from the Mans person; The Authority hath nothing from the Person, but a naked inherency in the Person, as in the subject: and the Person is to be honoured for the Authority, not the Authority for the Person. 3. Authority is not so separable from the person, as that for every act of lawless Will, the King loseth his Royal authority, and ceaseth to be King: no, but every act of a King, in so far can claim subjection of the inferior, as the act of commanding and ruling, hath law for it; and in so far as it is lawless, the Person in that act repugnant to Law, loseth all due claim of actual subjection in that act, and in that act, power actual is loosed, as is clear,