A92147:975
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.
Answ. 1. Though the Roman Emperors were absolute (of which I much doubt) and though the Senate had made them absolute, I deny that therefore they cannot be resisted. The unlawful resistance condemned by Paul, Rom. 13. is not upon the ground of Absoluteness, which is in the Court of God nothing, being never ordained of God, but upon reasons of conscience, because the powers are of God, and ordained of God. But some may say, Volenti non fit injuria, If a people totally resign their power, and swear nonresistance to a Conqueror, by compact, they cannot resist. I answer, neither doth this follow, because it is an unlawful compact, and none is obliged to what is unlawful. For 1. it is no more lawful for me to resign to another my power of natural self-defence, then I can resign my power to defend the innocent drawn to •eath, and ⟨p. 361⟩the wives, children and posterity that God hath tied me unto. 2. The people can no more resign power of self-defence, which Nature hath given them, then they can be guilty of self-murder, and be wanting in the lawful defence of Kingdom and Religion. 3. Though you make one their King with absoluteness of power, yet when he use that transcendent power, not for the safety, but for the destruction of the State, it is known they could not resign to another that power which neither God nor nature gave them, to wit, a power to destroy themselves. 2. I much doubt if the Roman Emperor was absolute, when Paul wrote this▪ Justinian saith so, Digest. l. 2. tit. 2. but he is partial in this cause. Bodine de repub. l. 2. c. 5. pag. 221. proveth that the Roman Emperors were but Princes of the Common-wealth, and that the Sovereignty remained still in the Senate and people. Marius Solomon. writeth sixe Books, De Principatu, on the contrary. How could they make the•r Emperors absolute? Livy saith, The name of a King was contrary to a Senate liberty. Florus, Nomen Regis invidiosum, They instituted a yearly Feast, February 23. called Regifugium. Cicero, as Augustine observeth, Regem Romae post haec nec Dii▪ nec homines esse patiantur. The Emperors might doe something de facto, but Lex Regia was not before Vespasians time. Augustus took on him to be Tribune of the people, from ten years to t•n. Suetonius and Tacitus say, The succeeding Kings encroached by degrees upon the peoples liberty.