A92147:867
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.
Symmons, p. 28. The Kings Personal will doth not always presuppone passion: and if it be attended with passion, yet we must bear it for conscience sake. Ans. We are to obey the Kings Personal will, when the thing commanded, is not sin; but his Subjects as Subjects, have little to do with his personal will in that notion. It concerneth his domestic servant, and is the Kings will as he is the master of servants, not as he is King in relation to Subjects; but we speak of the Kings personal will, as repugnant to Law, and contrary to the Kings will as King, and so contrary to the fifth ⟨p. 279⟩Commandment; and this is attended often, not only with Passion, but also with prejudice; and we owe no subjection to prejudice, and Passions, or to Actions commanded, by these misordered powers, because they are not from God, nor his Ordinances, but from men, and the flesh, and we owe no subjection to the flesh.
Symmons, p. 28. The Kings Personall will doth not alwayes presuppone passion: and if it be attended with passion, yet we must beare it for conscience sake. Ans. We are to obey the Kings Personall will, when the thing commanded, is not sinne; but his Subjects as Subjects, have little to do with his personall will in that notion. It concerneth his domestick servant, and is the Kings will as he is the master of servants, not as he is King in relation to Subjects; but we speak of the Kings personall will, as repugnant to Law, and contrary to the Kings will as King, and so contrary to the fifth ⟨p. 279⟩Commandment; and this is attended often, not onely with Passion, but also with prejudice; and we owe no subjection to prejudice, and Passions, or to Actions commanded, by these misordered powers, because they are not from God, nor his Ordinances, but from men, and the flesh, and we owe no subjection to the flesh.
Doct. Ferne, Sect. 9. pag. 58. The distinction of personal and legal will, hath place in evil actions, but not in resistance, where we cannot sever the person, and the dignity, or authority, because we cannot resist the power, but we must resist the person who hath the power. Saul had lawfully the command of Arms, but that power he useth unjustly, against innocent David. I ask when these Emperors took away lives and goods at their pleasure; was that a power ordained of God? No, but an Illegal will, a Tyranny, but they might not resist: nay, but they cannot resist: for that power and sovereignty employed to compass these illegal commandments, was ordained and settled in them. When Pilate condemned our Saviour, it was an illegal will, yet our Saviour acknowledgeth in it Pilates power, that was given him from above. Answ. 1. Here we have the distinction, denied by Royalists, granted by D. Fern; but if when the King commands us to do wickedness, we may resist that personal will, and when he commandeth us to suffer unjustly we cannot resist his will, but we must resist also his Royal person. What? Is it not still the King, and his person sacred, as his power is sacred, when he commandeth the subjects to do unjustly, as when he commandeth them to suffer unjustly? It were fearful to say, when Kings command any one act of idolatry, they are no longer Kings; if for conscience I am to suffer unjustly, when Nero commandeth unjust punishment, because Nero commanding so, remaineth Gods Minister. Why? But when Nero commandeth me to worship an Heathen God, I am upon the same ground to obey that unjust will in doing ill: For Nero in commanding Idolatry, remaineth the Lords Minister, his person is sacred in the one commandment of doing ill, as in inflicting ill of punishment. And do I not resist his person in the one, as in the other? His power and his person are unseparably conjoined by God in the one, as in the other, 2. In bodily thrusting out of Uzzah from the Temple, these fourscore valiant men did resist the Kings person, by bodily violence, as well as his power. 3. If the power of killing the Martyrs in Nero, was no power ordained of God, then the resisting of Nero, in his taking away the lives of the Martyrs, was but the resisting of Tyranny: