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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	bishop_n	church_n	king_n	3,230	5	3.5319	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94277	The Scotch souldiers speech concerning the Kings coronation-oath.	Montrose, James Graham, Marquis of, 1612-1650, attributed name.	1647 (1647)	Wing S963; Thomason E387_2; ESTC R201491	10,572	18

THE SCOTCH SOULDIERS SPEECH CONCERNING THE KINGS Coronation-Oath Printed in the Yeare 1647. THE Scotch Souldiers Speech concerning the Kings Coronation Oath GEntlemen fellow Souldiers though as a Scotchman I may be plaine and a Souldier blunt yet I hope as a Christian I shall be honest and as a Subject loyall in the expression of that duty which by the Laws of God of nature of the Kingdome of gratitude and of humanity is due to one who is by Soveraigne Majesty our King by birth our Countryman by education a Protestant by profession and actions a most pious Prince and by his gratious 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 our selves in this businesse of such high concernment Who knowes 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 Lawes to their chanell 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 possesse our soules we may justly feare 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 chiefe triumph trump in our owne hands besides so many honours we shall prove but ill Gamesters if we be not gainers by the deale and give Religion and Justice their due besides the saving of our owne stakes but for the effecting hereof it behooveth us to looke with our owne eyes and not through those spectacles or prospectives through which others present matters unto us we have hitherto been made beleeve that the end and design of all this war was to fetch the King from his evill Councellour 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 Royall presence there are now no evill Councellours about his there are no Armies to animate his non-compliance what is now the rock of offence beleeve it all the circumstances of this War considered we may justly feare that we have been made but a stale to the designes of those seditious Schismaticks who are now the obstacles of the Kingdomes peace and that they like the Ape made use of the Cats foot to plucke those Chesnuts out of the fire which themselves had designed for their owne palat It behooves us now duly to examine the businesse and we are bound according to the trust reposed in us by his Majesty to vindicate his Majesties Rights and to see her restored to all his legall 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 unnaturall War His Majesty at his Coronation in England tooke an Oath in these words I will maintaine and preserve to you the Bishops and to the Churches committed to your charges all Canonicall privileges and I will be your protector and defender to my power by the assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdome in right ought to defend the Bishops and Churches under their government then laying his hand on the booke on the Communion Table He saith these things I have before promised I shall performe and keep so helpe me God and the contents of this booke Here is an Oath able to strike terrour and amazement into the hearts of all the due circumstances there of being considered as well as feare and reverence in his Majesty about the performance of the same it is taken by Gods Anoynted in Gods House at Gods Table upon Gods Booke tendred by Gods Ministers to defend Gods Rights in the presence of Gods people and that with the imprecation of Gods curses and forfeiture of Gods 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 himselfe bound in duty to God in honour to the Church in Justice to His Subjects and in obedience to Christian principles to maintaine his Oath refuseth to consent to the root and branch bills against the Episcopacy but some whom I will not name forgetfull of his Majesties honour and conscience and resolving to execute their owne designes in altring the government of the Church have raised a Militia and called us into their ayd thereby to force a compliance from his Majesty and the Royall Party with them And now what soule is not astonished what heart doth not bleed whose eares do not tingle to heare that we unhappy we should under the pretence of holy Covenants be made the instruments of such horrid impieties What could the devill and all the fiends of hell have thought on more impious then perjury what more obnoxious to the Church of God then Sacrilege what more rebellious then by force of Armes to compell 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 Perjurie did God detest the withholding of Tythes and Offerings as robbery done to himselfe and is he now become a Patron of Sacrilege did he enjoyn subjection to Superiours as to his owne Ordinances and that upon paine of damnation and is he now become a Generall to Rebels whereby to force the King against his Oath and conscience Heare ô heavens and hearken ô earth if ever any such thing were committed that a great Councell of a Kingdome of Christians of Protestants of Subjects of those that were sworn to defend the Kings 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 Royall Posterity from the Crown raise a Militia against him vote him that he was seduced by evill Counsell that he sought the destruction of the Parliament to bring in Popery and to rule by an arbitrary way vote his Royall Consort to be guilty of high Treason for her loyalty murder his Nobility destroy his Gentry oppresse his Subjects wincke at the blasphemous hew-and-cries of Britannicus and vote his Majesty to prison because out of a pious and princely resolution he is fully bent to maintaine his Oath rather to part from his life and Crowne then from that Religion and Government

for thrusting the Apostles Creed out of the Church let them be published to the world that all Christians may judge how Orthodoxe 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 nullifie them at their pleasure Secondly if the King will not bend his conscience to be warped into Perjury by the scorching heat of their zeale whether or no it be lawfull for the Subjects to raise a Militia and to call us in to their aide 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 accompt which they are to give to God by the duty which they owe to the King and by the Oaths of Allegeance which they have taken be not bound to stand up in his Majesties aide for the vindication of his Majesties honour and conscience Fourthly where the Subjects do upon these grounds engage themselves in his Majesties 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 Godlinesse Papists popishly affected Traitors to the King enemies to their Country disturbers of the Peace and such like Fifthly whether or no all those Clergy-men that have taken the Oathes of Canonicall obedience and to maintaine the discipline and government of the Church all those of the Laity that have taken the Oathes of Offices of trusts and of allegeance can justifie the violation of those Oathes 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 justifie and vindicate the Kings Rights and conscience are to be esteemed as void and null in Law And whether or no all the bloud shed in this most horrid and unnaturall war shall be imputed to them who seeke to vindicate his Majesties honour and conscience or to those who under pretence of a thorow Reformation and of fighting against evill Counsellors give the King so many battells and turne these Kingdomes into so many Acheldama's filling them not only as Manasses did Jerusalem with bloud from one end to the other but also with so many Perjuries Sacriledges 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 justifie with their Pens I thinke impiety is not yet grown to that height of impudency 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 maximes spunged out of the Lawes and Statutes of this Kingdome 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 wickednesse before the Lord and to plead for the violation of the Kings Oath that were not only to sharpen the Tongues and Pens of men but even the Arrowes of Gods judgements against us and our cause and to make the enemies of God to blaspheme Religion yea to expose our selves 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 forreign Nation can with security relie upon the honesty of our Merchants what Religion will not feare to hold Communion with such a Religion or Nation whose Principles either in Religion or State maintaine that the Subjects may take up armes 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 Hereticks and shall now the Subjects take up arms to force the King to Perjury Lord what shall I say Is the Councell of Trent now removed into Henry the Sevenths Chappell Is the Popes Chaire at Rome changed into the Speakers Chaire at Westminster must our new reformed Religion be founded upon the foure corner stones of Blasphemy Perjury Sacrilege and Rebellion and shall we temper the morter thereof with the bloud and teares of his Majesties loyall people of our fellow Subjects of our Brethren and of those who live and dye in the same faith of Christ with our selves I tremble to thinke 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 doe 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 Kings Oath in some circumstances the substance of the Oath still remaining how ill will it be taken that we should rise in armes to force the Kings conscience against this Oath but admitting it had been but a private Oath nay if a wicked Oath and his Majesties 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 Scaene of the Churches 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 Royall 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 appeales to heaven and call God and man to witnesse their innocency rejoycing in nothing more then that there will be a day of Judgement when the righteous and impartiall Judge shall judge both them and us according to the justice and innocency of the cause in the meane time now that God hath done with them who knowes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he may begin with us and call us to an accompt Let us therefore hasten on the peace thereby to prevent those clouds of bloud which threaten to dissolve themselves upon us in fire and haile-stones let us lay the foundation thereof in heaven by rooting out those accursed doctrines of sedition which have watered our furrowes with so much bloud let us by a generall Councell chosen out of all the Provinces within his Majesties dominions according to the ancient and known Laws of the 3 severall Kingdomes restore religion to its purity of doctrine the Church to its unity of discipline but for us to thinke of a Reformation by faction and rebellion and to talke of Religion whilst we hold up our swords to force the Kings conscience to perjury is to blaspheme not to maintaine Religion and yet as one absurdity opens the doore to a thousand more and one sinne 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 thinke to cover the shame of this tenent 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 cloake the forcing of the Kings conscience by armes with proceeding against him by Ecclesiasticall censure but was ever any hereticke so blasphemously impudent as to talke of a tradatur Satanae against their King because he will not perjure himselfe to commit sacrilege and Apostacy this were to deliver our selves not the King to Satan and to burne our selves in hell for thus blaspheming God and the King whilst his Majesty signes his Halelujahs in heaven the curse causelesse shall not come and the arrowes that we shall shoot against him will fall upon our own heads this was not it for which his Majesty put himselfe upon our loyalty If the King would have been forced against his conscience hee needed not to have hazarded either his life or Crowne or to have committed himselfe to our trust he could have forsworne himselfe without our counsell or compulsion let us take heed that we make not a prey of that deere which flyes to us for succour from the Hunts-mans hounds Let us poure balm into the wound of the three Kingdoms by vindicating his Majesties honour and conscience and by restoring the King his Royall Consort the Prince the Church and the other subjects to their lawfull Rights so shall we by giving unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods truly make a covenant with heaven by our Religion and Justice and we may make up all the breaches of dissention by an happy union God may be pacified towards us we may prevent the plots of future designes obtaine honour with all Christian Princes and be restored to our owne homes with the plentifull reward of Religion Justice and Loialty Finis coronat Opus