A92147:969
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.
If the meaning be, as Royalists dream, he doth whatsoever he1 will or desireth, as a Prince, by his royal, that is, his legal will, by which he is lex animata, a breathing law; we shall own that as truth, and it is nothing against us. But if the meaning be, that De jure, as King, he doth whatsoever he will, by the absolute supremacy of Royal will above all law and reason; then Joram should by law as King, take Elisha's head away, and Elisha resisted God, in saying, What doth the King? and he sinned in commanding to deal roughly with the Kings messenger, and hold him at the door: then the fourscore valiant Priests, who said to King Uzziah, What dost thou? resisted him, in burning incense, which he desired to do, sinned; Then Pharaoh, who said, Ezech. 29. 3. The river Nilus is mine, I have made it for my self: and the King of Tyre, Ezek. 28. 2. I am God, I sit in the seat of God, should not be controlled by the Prophets, and no man should say to them, What sayest thou? Did Cyrus as a King, with a Royal power from God, and jure regio, be angry at the river Gyndes, because it drowned one of his horses, and punish it, by dividing it in 130. Channels? Sen. l. 3. de ira, c. 21. And did Xerxes, jure regio, by a Royal power given of2 God, when Hellespontus had cast down his bridges, command that three hundred whips should be inflicted on that little sea, and that it should be cast in fetters? And our Royalists will have these mad fools, doing these acts of blasphemous insolence against heaven, to be honoured as Kings, and to act those acts by a regal power. But hear, flatterers, a Royal power is the good gift of God, a lawful and just power. A King acting and speaking as a King, speaketh and acteth Law and Justice. A power to blaspheme is not a lawful power; they did and spake these things with a humane and a sinful will, if therefore this be the Royalists meaning, as Kings, 1. They are absolute, and so the limited and elected King is no King. 2. The King as King is above Gods Law, put on him by God, Deut. 17. 3. His will is the measure of good and ill. 4. It were unlawful to say to the King of Cyrus, What sayest thou? Thou are not ⟨p. 359⟩