THE SCOTCH soldiers SPEECH CONCERNING THE King's Coronation-Oath.  
Printed in the year, 1647.   

THE Scotch soldier's Speech, concerning the King's Coronation Oath.  
GEntlemen, & fellow soldiers, though as a Scotchman I may be plain, and a soldier blunt, yet (I hope) as a Christian I shall be honest, and as a Subject loyal in the expression of that duty, which by the Laws of God, of nature, of the kingdom, of gratitude, and of humanity is due to one, who is by sovereign Majesty our King, by birth our Countryman, by education a Protestant, by profession, and actions a most pious Prince, and by his gracious compliance with us confident in our loyalty; the confluence of which obligements hath made all the powers of heaven, and earth to stand as it were in amaze, being big with expectations to see how well or ill we deport ourselves in this business of such high concernment. Who knows but that the divine providence hath sent his Majesty to us, that we might be made the happy instruments of a well grounded peace, and of restoring Religion to its purity, the Church to its Rights, the King to his Prerogative, and laws to their channel, the Nobility, and Gentry to their honours and estates, and the people to their Liberties: if we resolve upon these things, we may crown our Nation with honour, but if unworthy thoughts possess our souls, we may justly fear, that (although salvation may come some other way,) yet we, and our party shall perish. It is true that we have an hard game to play, but having the chief triumph trump in our own hands, besides so many honours, we shall prove but ill Gamesters, if we be not gainers by the deal, and give Religion and Justice their due, besides the saving of our own stakes: but for the effecting hereof it behooveth us to look with our own eyes, and not through those spectacles, or prospectives through which others present matters unto us: we have hitherto been made believe, that the end, and design of all this war was to fetch the King from his evil counsellor to his Parliament of England; his Majesty very often, (yea even beneath the dignity of so great a Prince) desired to comply with them, but they instead of accepting his Majesty, voted him a prisoner; his Majesty having honoured us with his royal presence, there are now no evil counsellors about his, there are no Armies to animate his noncompliance: what is now the rock of offence▪ believe it (all the circumstances of this War considered) we may justly fear that we have been made but a stale to the designs of those seditious schismatics, who are now the obstacles of the kingdom's peace, and that they (like the Ape) made use of the cat's foot to pluck those chestnuts out of the fire, which themselves had designed for their own palate; It behooves us now duly to examine the business, and we are bound (according to the trust reposed in us by his Majesty) to vindicate his majesty's Rights, and to see her restored to all his legal Prerogatives: but shall I tell you the true causes of this present difference, and that which we may upon good grounds suspect to be the true occasion of this most horrid, and unnatural War? His Majesty at his Coronation in England took an Oath in these words: I will maintain, and preserve to you (the Bishops) and to the Churches committed to your charges, all canonical privileges, and I will be your protector, and defender to my power, by the assistance of God, as every good King in his kingdom in right aught to defend the Bishops, and Churches under their government: then (laying his hand on the book on the Communion Table) He saith, these things I have before promised I shall perform and keep, so help me God, and the contents of this book. Here is an Oath able to strike terror and amazement into the hearts of all, (the due circumstances there of being considered) as well as fear and reverence in his Majesty about the performance of the same: it is taken by God's anointed, in God's House, at God's Table, upon God's book, tendered by God's Ministers, to defend God's Rights, in the presence of God's people, and that with the imprecation of God's curses, and forfeiture of God's blessings; so that if ever any Oath could properly, by way of eminency, be called the Oath of God, this is it: His Majesty therefore out of his Princely piety (conceiving himself bound in duty to God, in honour to the Church, in Justice to His Subjects, and in obedience to Christian principles to maintain his Oath,) refuseth to consent to the root and branch bills against the Episcopacy: but some (whom I will not name) forgetful of his majesty's honour, and conscience, and resolving to execute their own designs in altering the government of the Church, have raised a Militia, and called us into their aid, thereby to force a compliance from his Majesty, and the royal Party, with them. And now what soul is not astonished? what heart doth not bleed? whose ears do not tingle? to hear that we (unhappy we) should, under the pretence of holy Covenants, be made the instruments of such horrid impieties? What could the devil, and all the fiends of hell have thought on more impious than perjury? what more obnoxious to the Church of God then Sacrilege? what more rebellious than by force of arms to compel the King to both? what more blasphemous to God, and scandalous to Christianity, then to do all these things under the name & pretence of Religion? what, was God the God of truth when he gave us the Precept of performing all our Vows, and is he now become the God of perjury? did God detest the withholding of tithes, and Offerings as robbery done to himself, and is he now become a Patron of Sacrilege? did he enjoin subjection to superiors as to his own Ordinances, and that upon pain of damnation, and is he now become a general to Rebels, whereby to force the King against his Oath, and conscience? Hear o heavens, and harken o earth, if ever any such thing were committed, that a great council of a kingdom, of Christians, of Protestants, of Subjects, of those that were sworn to defend the King's rights, should countenance tumults, connive at assaults upon his Majesty, examine the circumstances of his birth to prove Bastardy in him, that thereby they might remove him, and his royal Posterity, from the Crown, raise a Militia against him, vote him that he was seduced by evil counsel, that he sought the destruction of the Parliament, to bring in Popery, and to rule by an arbitrary way, vote his royal Consort to be guilty of high Treason for her loyalty, murder his Nobility, destroy his Gentry, oppress his Subjects, wink at the blasphemous hue-and-cries of Britannicus, and vote his Majesty to prison, because out of a pious, and princely resolution, he is fully bent to maintain his Oath, rather to part from his life, and crown, then from that Religion, and Government, both in Church ●nd State, which he is sworn, and hath so often deeply protested, and declared to maintain. Good God what shall we say to this? whether shall we cause our shame to sly? to whom shall we appeal for excuses? shall we ascend up into heaven for them? Lo there we shall find all the Saints, and Angels of God, who continually behold the face of their heavenly Father, detesting those new doctrines of forcing the King's conscience contrary to his Oath; as such whereof all the patriarchs, and Prophets, and Martyrs of God were formerly ignorant. Shall we appeal unto men? behold Ireland conquered, our own Country up in arms, the greatest part of the Nobility, and Gentry, and all the heads of the Universities, together with the learned part of the clergy of England, detesting our actions with as much abomination, as ever the Egyptians hated the profession of Shepherds: and if we had put the case at the election of the Parliament members, if the King will not, contrary to his Oath taken at his Coronation, consent to the pulling down of Episcopacy, and alteration of the Church Government, whether or no it be the Subjects minds by force of arms to compel him thereunto, contrary to his Oath and conscience, all people would have been ready to stone us, as not thinking it possible that such horrid impieties should enter into the hearts, or thoughts of the great council of the kingdom; and certainly if we had ingenuously confessed the truth at first, without the cloak of a thorough Reformation, or of fetching evil councillors from the King, we should never have raised so great a power: and if we look beyond the Seas, we are accounted the shame of Christians, and the scorn of Christianity, yea even all Protestant Churches (when they are really informed, against what principles we have proceeded) will hate, and detest our actions: shall we ransack the sacred Scriptures? I have showed you before against what divine precepts we have proceeded, but behold there indeed the pure fountains of living water blundred, and abused for the justification of our cause; when one shall tell us, that we may fight against our King, because it is written, Thou shalt bind their Kings in chains, and their Nobles with links of Iron: Another (blaspheming the King with horrid slanders) shall conclude that Tophet was prepared of old, yea for the King it was prepared: And a third (as though he would fore-prophecy of the King's destruction) saith, though Jeconiah were the signet upon my right hand, yet will I pluck him from thence: Are not these horrid things, such as would make a dumb man speak, and a wise man dumb with horror and amazement? If (fellow soldiers) you intend to be ruled by the Scripture, let me put you a Scripture-case; in Saul's seeking to make havoc of the Gibeonites, contrary to the Oath given them, you may observe, how this Oath was obtained by fraud, and a lie; that it was expressly against the Covenant of Promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and afterwards to Moses, Aaron, and the people; that it was given rashly without asking counsel of God, and to a people by Nation heathens, by Religion Idolaters, and by condition vassals, to be drawers of water and hewers of wood; that what Saul did was at the least 300 years after the Oath given, in which time that Oath may seem to some to be antiquated; and that he did it in zeal to the people of Israel; But what the success? the blood of the men shed by reason of this perjury cried aloud to heaven for vengeance; God's ears were opened to their cries, he punisheth the whole Land with Famine, and would not be paci●ied but with the hanging up of almost all Saul's Posterity: are not these things written for our instruction? and what judgements (Think we) shall attend us if we force the King to violate that Oath, which his majesty took by the laws of the kingdom, for the preservation of Gods, and the Churches Rights, shall we then look within us, and there make boasts of the Spirit? but if God's Word be the trial of the Spirit, that Spirit which is repugnant to the Word of God cannot be the Spirit of God; God's Spirit comes to us in Truth not in Perjury, in meekness, in the form of a Dove, not of an Eagle, or with Vultures talons to steal flesh from the Altar; and we know this to be the difference between the spirit of Truth, and the spirit of error, that Truth desireth nothing but the arms of righteousness, the arms of Prayer, and tears, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: to fight for the profession: hereof against their lawful Kings, the Doctrines of setting kingdom against kingdom, and Nation against Nation, by foreign Wars, and of setting the Father against the Son, and the Son against the Father by civil dissensions, are the Doctrines of those false Christ's, who shall deceive many, and are reserved for the worst of times, to be maintained by the worst of men, who by their boasting of the Spirit, fill the Church with Heresies, and schisms, the kingdom with Rebellion, and the world with confusion: shall we plead the Votes, and Orders of the Parliament of England, or the national Covenant? what were this, but under pretence of pulling down Popery to set up Idolatry, and to lay aside all the laws of God for the Covenant, and for the Votes and Orders of the Houses? but if the Covenant be to maintain Religion, and the King's honour, we shall then truly perform the Covenant in both, when we detest those Doctrines, and actions, that dishonour God, and the King, by accursed Perjury; and that were a Covenant with hell that should covenant to force the King to forswear himself. But tell me, (I pray you) is it the Votes, and Orders of the Houses, and the Covenant, or the commandments of God that shall justify or condemn us the last day? shall we plead the laws of England? but (I pray you) what laws can be of force to mate themselves against the laws of God? and what laws of the kingdom were ever produced to justify the raising of a Militia, and the calling in of foreign aid, and joining in Covenants, thereby to force the King's violation of his Coronation Oath? Again (if we believe them that are professed in those laws) they lay this as a maxim, that no Law, Statute, or custom, which is either against the Law of God, or Principles of Nature, can be of any validity, or force, but are void, and null in Law; they say further, that therefore this Oath was by the fundamental laws and constitutions of the kingdom presented to his Majesty of purpose to bind his conscience to preserve the ecclesiastical Rights, for the comfort, and encouragement of true Piety, and Learning: that as the laws, and Statutes of Articuli Cleri, and other records should bind the hands of the subjects, so this Oath should bind the conscience of the King from violating the Churches Rights: and therefore it is expressed as a several Article in the Coronation-Oath, that the King should never assent to any Act, that should trench upon their Rights, and that howsoever the King's conscience was at liberty to consent to the alteration of any other of the municipal laws, yet it should be bound as to this by the especial and direct words of the Oath; as likewise his Majesty is bound by the words of that Oath, to do justice to all: and therefore by virtue of this Oath, as well as of honour and Justice, if the Houses tender any Bills which his Majesty conceives to be against common right, or Justice, his Majesty is bound not to give his majesty's royal assent thereunto, which cannot but strike amazement in all knowing men, that any should be so impudently wicked, as against all the lights of God, of Nature, and the kingdom to try the King with perjury, because he will not consent to the root and branch bills against Episcopacy; and the royal party desires no other happiness then to be admitted to a full and free disputation upon that point; and that their reasons might be published in all Churches, and declared to all the world, for the justification of his Majesties and their innocencies in this cause. Against this shall we plead the pride and arrogancy of the Bishops and Clergy? but I fear this will be with greater pride; suppose some Bishops and Clergy exalt themselves against some of God's people, must we therefore exalt ourselves against God, and God's Anointed? because some Bishops are proud, must ye subjects therefore take up arms to force the King to perjury, and sacrilege? let their insolences be punished, but let Gods and the Churches Rights remain. It is granted that some of the Clergy by the irregularity of their actions, and laying clogs upon men's consciences, gave a great scandal to the Church, but these might be legally proceeded against; and what innovations they had brought in contrary to law might have been reformed; but must therefore the function, contrary to all the principles of Religion, Law, and reason, be rooted out? because there was a Judas amongst the Apostles, did Christ take away the Apostleship? because many Angels did rebel against God, did God destroy the whole Hierarchy? Suppose some Bishops sought to set themselves the one at the right hand of the King, the other at his left, as James and John did at Christ's; must their ambition cause all to be despised? If God should root out all mankind, because some are most refractory wicked persons, what would become of us? the doctrines of rooting out all for the abuses of some, are agreeable neither to the precept, nor pattern of him, who will have the wheat and ta●es grow together till the harvest: and it hath formerly been accounted the wisdom of Parliaments to reform abuses by regulating, not by extirparton. But yet what hath the righteous done? whose eyes are so swelled with pride, or blinded with malice, that do not see how many Saints of God there were both of the Bishops, Doctors, and other Clergy, who willingly laid down their lives for that Cause, and Religion, which his Majesty doth now maintain▪ and for us to say, that if they had lived in these days, they would have ended with us, is a speech as full of arrogancy, as ignorance, and expressly against all their actions; and how many are there of their successors, who, before this unhappy difference, were men famous in their generations, and have now none other fault but their constancy to their Religion, and their loyalty to their King? shall we then justice our Cause, for that God hath gone along with our Armies? O poor miserable creatures if we have no better than such fig-leaves to cover our nakedness! because God doth often bless the adulterous seed, is he therefore either the cause, or lover of adultery? if we have nothing but the power of the sword for the justification of our Cause, by this title, the blasphemies of Mahomet in the Alcoran, and the dotages of the Popish superstitions in the Legend may lay claim to heaven as well as we: but what if God out of the heat of his wrathful indignation towards us, have (as he useth to do to those whom he gives over to a reprobate sense) given us the victory, thereby to obdurate us in our rebellion, that through pride of heart, and vain conceit of a just Cause, we might be made more uncapable of repentance, and pardon? It is true, that God hath had a controversy with the English, and we for their sins may be made the rod of God's anger in punishing the King, and all his royal party; but we know not how soon for our own sins God may throw this rod into the fire. Perchance you will say, that the King in taking away the Churches Rights should do no more, than what he himself in part, and his royal Predecessors have formerly consented unto: but who knows not, that his Majesty never willingly agreed to the abrogation of any of the Churches dues; and if his pious heart smite him for cutting off the lap of their skirts, must he be forced to strip them as naked as the young man that left his linen garment behind him? and who knows not that all those Kings, who have been regardless of their oaths in taking away the Churches Rights, have been pursued by the hand of Justice, so that there is not so much as the name, or posterity of any of them remaining? and who knows but that those acts of impiety might be amongst those crowds of sins, which have cried so loud for judgement against these kingdoms? But shall we say that this Oath is an evil Oath, and so evil in the taking, and worse in the keeping? this were to cast dirt upon the face of the whole constitution of that Church, & State of that kingdom which appointed the tenure of this Oath to his Majesty. But wherein (I pray you) doth the malignity of this Oath consist? suppose that there were now a Parliament of Papists, who would take up arms under pretence of a thorough Reformation, and of voting all Protestants that should side with the King, as evil counsellors, and of fetching the King from them to his great council, should not we that are Protestants stand up in his majesty's justification? should not we abominate the violating of these laws of God, of nature, and of the kingdom, under the pretence of the power of the great council, as Jesuitical impostures? is it unlawful for the King to break his Oath for any Votes, Orders, or Ordinances of Popish Parliaments and shall Protestants now do that which they so much detest in Papists? but if there be any that will plead for Baal let them stand up, and produce their strong reasons, let the case be truly stated to the Assembly of Divines, and if they have any new Directories for the regulating of the King's conscience against his Oath, as well as for thrusting the Apostles Creed out of the Church, let them be published to the world, that all Christians may judge how orthodox they are. First let them resolve whether or no the King (not withstanding the taking of this oath) be bound to take away the Churches rights? and whether or no (like so many Popes) they or the Houses have power to dispense with Oaths, and to nullify them at their pleasure. Secondly, if the King will not bend his conscience to be warped into Perjury, by the scorching heat of their zeal, whether or no it be lawful for the Subjects to raise a Militia, and to call us in to their aid to force the King thereunto, and whether or no it be rebellion so to do? Thirdly, where the King is pursued because he will not commit Perjury, whether or no the Subjects by that account which they are to give to God, by the duty which they owe to the King, and by the Oaths of allegiance which they have taken, be not bound to stand up in his majesty's aid, for the vindication of his majesty's honour, and conscience? Fourthly, where the Subjects do upon these grounds engage themselves in his majesty's service, whether or no it be according to the rules of Religion, or Justice, to vote, or publish them to be enemies to God, and all godliness, Papists, popishly affected, Traitors to the King, enemies to their Country, disturbers of the Peace, and such like? Fifthly, whether or no all those clergymen that have taken the oaths of canonical obedience, and to maintain the discipline, and government of the Church; all those of the Laity that have taken the oaths of Offices, of trusts and of allegiance, can justify the violation of those oaths, to comply with the two Houses, in forcing his Majesty to violate this? Sixthly, whether or no all the laws of God, and man, which justify, and vindicate the King's Rights, and conscience, are to be esteemed as void and null in Law; And whether or no all the blood shed in this most horrid and unnatural war shall be imputed to them, who seek to vindicate his majesty's honour, and conscience, or to those, who (under pretence of a thorough Reformation, and of fighting against evil Counsellors) give the King so many battles, and turn these kingdoms into so many acheldamas, filling them not only (as Manasses did Jerusalem) with blood from one end to the other, but also with so many Perjuries, sacrileges, and horrid Blasphemies? If the Assembly of Divines be ashamed to own these accursed impieties, why should not we be ashamed to defend those things by our Swords, which they are ashamed to justify with their Pens? I think impiety is not yet grown to that height of impudence, that any man dare dispute these questions, in the discussing whereof it will appear, that, if all the Precepts of Divinity were taken out of the Word of God, all the dictates of reason blotted out of the Book of nature, and all the maxims spunged out of the laws and Statutes of this kingdom, which have been violated in the justification of this War against the King, there would be neither Scripture, Reason, nor Law left us how to walk as Christians, Men, or Subjects: but if there be any whose desperate condition hath sold him (like Ahab) to work wickedness before the Lord, and to plead for the violation of the King's Oath, that were not only to sharpen the Tongues and Pens of men, but even the arrows of God's judgements against us, and our cause, and to make the enemies of God to blaspheme Religion, yea to expose ourselves, our Kingdoms, our Religion, and all that we have, to the contempt and scorn of all nations, and Religions whatsoever. What Kingdom can with safety, enter into a League, or confederacy with our King; what foreign Nation can with security rely upon the honesty of our Merchants; what Religion will not fear to hold Communion with such a Religion, or Nation, whose Principles, either in Religion, or State, maintain, that the Subjects may take up arms to force the King contrary to his Oath, yea his Coronation-Oath? how often have our Pulpits rung, that faith is to be kept with heretics, and shall now the Subjects take up arms to force the King to Perjury? Lord, what shall I say? Is the council of Trent now removed into Henry the seventh's chapel? Is the Pope's chair at Rome changed into the Speakers chair at Westminster? must our new reformed Religion be founded upon the four corner stones of Blasphemy, Perjury, Sacrilege, and Rebellion? and shall we temper the mortar thereof with the blood; and tears of his majesty's loyal people, of our fellow Subjects, of our Brethren, and of those, who live, and die in the same faith of Christ with ourselves? I tremble to think what the event of these things may be though we have hitherto escaped the sword, I pray God that a Serpent out of the wall do not bite us: If it were taken so ill that the late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and some other Counsellors of State should alter the King's Oath in some circumstances (the substance of the Oath still remaining) how ill will it be taken that we should rise in arms to force the King's conscience against this Oath? but admitting it had been but a private Oath, nay if a wicked Oath, and his majesty's conscience had led him to take and defend the same, what Doctrine is there in the Scripture that inables the subjects to rise in rebellion against him for it? we may now see the scene of the church's stage strangely altered; the Church, and true Religion formerly suffered persecution by the tyranny of Kings; but now Kings (yea pious Kings) suffer persecution by the tyranny of Religion: these these and such like arguments are those rocks upon which the royal party hath built their judgement; who, although they be overcome by the sword, are not yet vanquished in their cause; for which they make their appeals to heaven, and call God and man to witness their innocency, rejoicing in nothing more, then that there will be a day of Judgement, when the righteous, and impartial Judge shall judge both them, and us according to the justice and innocency of the cause: in the mean time, now that God hath done with them, who knows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he may begin with us, and call us to an account? Let us therefore hasten on the peace, thereby to prevent those clouds of blood, which threaten to dissolve themselves upon us in fire, and hailstones; let us lay the foundation thereof in heaven, by rooting out those accursed doctrines of sedition, which have watered our furrows with so much blood; let us by a general council chosen out of all the Provinces within his majesty's dominions, according to the ancient, and known Laws of the 3 several kingdoms, restore religion to its purity of doctrine, & the Church to its unity of discipline: but for us to think of a Reformation by faction and rebellion, and to talk of Religion whilst we hold up our swords to force the King's conscience to perjury, is to blaspheme, not to maintain Religion: and yet, as one absurdity opens the door to a thousand more, and one sin makes way for another, I have heard some of our leven, (finding that they have done what they could by the sword, and all to no purpose) think to cover the shame of this tenant with a worse; and (as David thought to cover his adultery by murder,) so these would cover their murder by adulterating the Church of God, and would cloak the forcing of the King's conscience by arms, with proceeding against him by ecclesiastical censure; but was ever any heretic so blasphemously impudent, as to talk of a tradatur Satanae against their King, because he will not perjure himself to commit sacrilege and apostasy: this were to deliver ourselves not the King to Satan, and to burn ourselves in hell for thus blaspheming God, and the King, whilst his Majesty signs his hallelujahs in heaven; the curse causeless shall not come, and the arrows that we shall shoot against him will fall upon our own heads: this was not it for which his Majesty put himself upon our loyalty: If the King would have been forced against his conscience, he needed not to have hazarded either his life, or crown, or to have committed himself to our trust, he could have forsworn himself without our counsel, or compulsion; let us take heed that we make not a prey of that dear, which flies to us for succour from the huntsman's hounds. Let us pour balm into the wound of the three Kingdoms, by vindicating his majesty's honour, and conscience, and by restoring the King, his royal Consort, the Prince, the Church, and the other subjects to their lawful Rights; so shall we by giving unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's, truly make a covenant with heaven by our Religion, and Justice; and we may make up all the breaches of dissension by an happy union; God may be pacified towards us; we may prevent the plots of future designs; obtain honour with all Christian Princes; and be restored to our own homes, with the plentiful reward of Religion, Justice, and loyalty.  
Finis coronat Opus.