prodigiously to destroy the roots and branches of the royal stemm and though it was hatcht and contriv'd by a cunning hypocritical Crocodile and his bloudy Sycophants Cromwel yet as if Heaven and Earth God and man did abhor such an odious oath and combination how suddenly did it please God that his arme of providence should appear and incline the hearts not only of his loyal subjects but even of those who had been bitter Enemies to the royal throne to endeavour and cooperate for his Majesties restauration And now all these Withes and new Cords being broken by a Samsonian strength and influence from true Soveraignty are untwisted and unravel'd to an odium and a scorn And the Parliament hath judiciously and nobly determined and damn'd the covenant the Engagement and the oath of Abjuration to be illegal factious and seditious papers and all rational subjects may securely acquiess in their judgement and determination u Malum quod juramus facere non debemus implâ—â—â— D. Ber. de perjur ser 32. If this Collyrium clear not the eyes of all Protesters Covenanters Engagers and abjurators nor all these reasons reduce the phanatically deluded to their fidelity and allegiance to their King let them beware least the judgement as well as the sins of detestable perjury follow or fall upon them This is a horrid crime which the Schoolmen lay open to the world in this dress that x Perjurium est mondacium juramento firmatum Aurey Thes Eccles lib. 4. dist 39. perjury is a ly confirm'd and ratified by an oath and this is a most fearful aggravation And it is St. Hieroms resolution y Ius jurandum tres habet comites veritatem judicium justitiam Hieron super Hieremi 22. q. 2. that no oath is lawful unless it be attended with three indispensable concomitants viz. Truth Iudgement and Righteousnesse and where all or any of these three faile an oath is perjury St. Austin is more strict claring plainly z Cum sit vel putat falsum esse tamen pro vero jurat D. Aug. de ver Apost ser 28. that he is perjured that sweareth voluntarily what he knoweth to be false with a deceitful design or if he perfectly know it not thinketh it to be false The Fathers make an out-cry and declaim severely against this crime and call it Bellua detestanda a most detestable beast and filthy sin The schoolmen seem yet more severe then the Fathers a Iurans rerum quod putat esse falsum vel jurans falsum quod putat esse verum est perjurus T. Aquin. 22. ae q. 98 1.3 Aquinas determins that he who sweareth the truth which he thinketh to be false or swearing that which is false thinketh it to be truth is a perjured person Where the sin is so notorious the infamy and obloquies so odious and the judgements of the Eternal revenger so terrible and dangerous against perjured persons how careful should subjects be to recover themselves to the duty of loyalty and thereby to repair their credit and to vindicate themselves from eternal plagues and infamy The clouds thus dispersed by the beams of truth and rational arguments It is most evident that those subjects who started from their allegiance loyalty can neither plead excuse or merit for their tergiversation Apostacy as to any unlawful oaths wherewith their soules were insnared or intangled they are by the supream laws of God the laws of men discharghed absolved from them unless hardned with obstinacy they will as 't is in the Greek proverb b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. malum malo meditatur sophocles Aeneas Platonicus ad sin unto sin force one nail with driving another and to perjury adde wilful impenitency but better things may be hoped from all subjects who as men look on themselves as born for rational society or as Christians professing the truths of sacred religion and not longer adhering to self opinion or seditious faction be perfectly converted to be true cordial royalists remembring the caution and counsel the late royal c Εικον Βασιλικε cont 19. pag. 174. Martyr gave not to pretend a reformation and to force a rebellion nor to hearken or give credit to those parasitick preachers who dared to call those Martyrs who dyed fighting against their King the laws their oathes and the religion established But sober Christians know that glorious title of Martyrs can with truth be applied to those who sincerely preferred Gods truth and their duty in all particulars before their lives and all that was dear to them in this world who where religiously sensible of those tyes to God the Church and the King which lay on their souls both for obedience and just assistance By this time apostatiz'd and deluded subjects their eyes being as well opened with sad experience as bright beames of reason and truth may cleerly see their errours and more securely avoid their dangers But least as those who behold their faces in a glass they may upon aremoval utterly forget their features or complexions It may not prove improper to set before us those pure Christals of Piety Wisdome Religion Honour and Government which the customes and laws of former ages have conveyed to this present generation engaging both the King and people to their respective dutyes whereby the soveraign and all his subjects are comprehended under â—â—mental obligationds d Fidelis sermo retinet locum sacramenti Iuramento non egit veritas D. Ber. Serm. 32. This difference and distinction only admitted that glorious Princes of the imperial Crown of England have in their royal grace and voluntary condescention accustomed themselves to solemn oathes at their coronation but the Kings subjects are obliged by oaths setled formed and confirmed by laws to exhibit and perform their homage Fealty allegiance and Fidelity to their Kings as Gods annointed and in these high priviledges and prerogatives the Kings of England seem to have a more legal tye and soveraignty over their subjects then either the Crown of France or Spain whose subjects are commanded in greater vassalage and as brighter and leading stars that sacred oathes obligations are here presented which pious Kings and Queens have accustomed to take at their coronation when they sealed to their sacred vows in the communion and sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ and then as better fitted have laid their hands on the blessed Evangelists bowing their heads have kissed the book the best eternal evidence of the affection of the heart and thus prepared they have usually received the Imperial Crown and Scepter with other Regalia and Emblems of royal Majestie from Gods altar as holding all their power and soveraignty from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that God Angels and Men Heaven and Earth and the whole world and all ages to come may behold the pious integrity of Sacred Princes The Kings Oath at his Coronation L. Bishop of London
protestation have considered of the contrivances intrigues interests of that cunning trap and popular bait they ought to retreat from the danger of those snares now having recovered their sense and reason by repentance and a better consultation may better know how to perform their duty to God in his Church and to their King and Country The mask of the protestation thus pul'd off and the curtaines drawn the face of loyalty is more clear and visible yet there is another brood and sort of persons who cry out of their peirced and wounded consciences and tell the world they have with hearts and hands lifted up to heaven taken the national and general covenant and they cannot quit fairly with this delight and darling of their soules This as Diana from Iupiter they urge fell from Heaven and though the Covenant was the contrivance of a few confederated seditious heads yet the covenanters hold themselves obliged to keep it as stirctly as if it had been the breath motion and dictates of the sacred spirit of God and many suppose that having lifted up their hands in a pious delusion they cannot nor must not let them fall in a repentant and humble submission to their Soveraign and the laws of their Country but such infatuated Zelots are much deceived and ought to see more clearly the scales of their delusion being taken from their eyes but if an irrational sturdy obstinacy still possess their resolutions willfulnesse blind's reason and obduration cauterize their consciences their best cure may be procured by advising with the incomparable reasons of the University of Oxford against the covenant if those reasons prove not a welcome soveraign cordial let such passionate Zelots apply themselves to their Princes remedy and Probatum or for ever hold themselves in their Honour Souls and Consciences to be incurable And the late blessed Royal Martyr t doth most pathetically and powerfully advise and argue Εικον Βασιλικε chap. 14. of the covenant pag. 110. The enjoynings of Oathes upon people must needs in things doubtfull be dangerous as in things unlawfull damnnable no lesse superfluous where former religious legall Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties nor can I see how they will reconcile such an innovating Oath and Covenant with that former protestation which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they count discipline so great a part of Religion And in the the next page the King saith in the candor and kindness of his spirit I am prone to believe and hope that many who take the covenant are yet firm to this judgement that such later vows oathes or leagues can never blot out those former gravings and characters which by just and lawful Oathes were made upon their Souls And again the blessed King urgeth the third time that which makes such confederations by way of Solemn Leagues and covenants more to be suspected is that they are the common road in all factions and powerful perturbations of State or Church where formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are ever more studied and elaborate then when Politicians most agitate desperate designs against all that is setled or Sacred in Religion and Laws which by such service are cunningly yet forcibly wrested by secret steps and less sensible degrees from their known rule and wonted practise to comply with the humour of those men who aime to subdue all to their own will and power under the disguises of holy combinations These were the counsels and command of a dying King who sealed these truths with his royal bloud and they may serve as cautions or preventive physick not to be refused as cordials to comfort languishing and fainting spirits as soveraign remedyes to recover relapsed patients to a sound and heathful disposition of both Soul and body and they are not to be neglected or despised by any rational subjects but who doom themselves to discontent or willfully are dementated to a self perdition When the protestation and the covenant 3. Engagement like old and useless Almanacks were laid aside a successive jugling prevailing party found out vicious matter to compose new bird lime and shuffling the cards and then cutting and dealing cuningly devised by an Engagement to catch some credulous and timorous complying inclinations or at least utterly to pack the Presbyterian out of the stock of power and interest This obortive Embrìo and Precocious birth was quickly tumbled out of the body of the bear and by some smooth bloudy tongues licked into a form or rather confusion of words which reduced to neither mood or figure were so illogical that the Engagement was looked on as a factious seditious snare and not strong enough to hold the foot of the lightest Larke The weakest person that complyed to be entangled in it as to the form if any it was a subscribed promise before an illegal Magistrate And as to the matter it was a fancy or dream like that of Vtopia of a common wealth which was no where in England unless in some mens brains who were sick of ambition and pride and long'd for Government This republick they stiled setled when the world saw the-three Kingdomes in disorder and confusion and the Authours and Abettors of this Ridiculous monster panting quaking and sculking under continual suspitions and the pinching torments of fears and jealousies but that which occasioned greatest scorn and laughter of this seditious bug-bear was that it was covetously contrived to be a vendible commodity and so easily gain'd from the justice of Peace or his Clark for half a Crown and in a short time it prov'd a more common contemptible drug and was familiarly bought for twelve pence until at last it was not valuable On which devise all judicious and sober Persons did look as a state cheat or a meer moral promise to things imaginary irrational and impossible under the pressure of tyrannical usurpers and in it self no way legal or binding being like tow in an instant set on fire by some sulphurous sparks and flaming for a moment dyed and was suddenly extinguished Vsus jurandi ducit hominem ad perjurium D Ber. ser 32. de perjurio A fourth but more black traiterous and odious obligation and oath was that of the abjuration which most horridly did conjure the perjured swearers to renounce their lawful King and his royal line and the successors of that imperial and renowned family Sicut mentiri non potest qui non loquitur sic pejerare non poterit qui jurare non appetit D. Bernard ser 32. de perjurio And this potion though dangerous and damnable like viper wine went pleasantly down with two many who if not soundly purged with true repentance may feel the acerbity of this venemous composition attended with pangs and torments in their gauled consciences for ever This was a treason of the highest degree a fin of a great magnitude a daring crime aiming
thus Homer honorably mentions Agamemnon n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homer Iliad 18. the word was no sooner out of that great worthies mouth but it was his act and deed but Princes are of more sublime and higher qualities as being earthly Gods their words are more Sacred and Soveraign Thus Pylat though an inferiour Potentate toul'd the Jews quod scripsi scripsi And Servius commenting on those words of the Poet o Virgil. lib. 12. Aeneid Do quod vis bene inquit presenti usus est tempore nam promissio in Diis pro facto est I give what thou wilt the God did well to use the present tense as if the will and words of Princes were very Acts and Deeds but if any knot can binde faster then words or promises see the gracious dispositions and customes of the Kings of England offering up as in the beauty of holiness the sacrifice of pious resolutions to God Almighty in sacred oathes for their most Princely government And as Kings thus unite themselves by these most Sacred bonds to the King of Kings so their Officers and Ministers of State and servants of their Courts are engaged by special Oathes of Obedience and Fidelity and all their subjects are obliged by a national Law to swear to the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy no rank being to be excused at the age of Eighteen from these just and rational obligations unless the Lords and Peers of the Realm whose refined Honour being as equivalent if not more superlative doth as powerfully indear them to loyalty and true allegiance to their Princes it cannot then but be justly censured a crime of the highest nature to violate sacred bonds with treachery and infidelity and yet that soul sin may be presented more ugly when any in greater and neerer trust about the King as a Minister of his royal affairs or a sworn servant of his Court shall perfidiously or timorously forfeit his Faith which by duplicated Oathes being sealed on his Soul as a door more secure under a double lock ought to be more firm and not to be forced by any Art or Engine and if single perjury be so notorious a crime how horrid and hellish will it appear in the multiplication of false illegal perjurous and damnable Oathes The link and jonts of government thus reaching from Heaven to Eatth from God to Man and from the King of Kings to Kings and Princes on earth they thence graciously descend from royal thrones to the meanest and lowest of all their people who in a community participate of the blessings of Monarchy under the protection and Grace of their Prince and the benefit and provision of most excellent and wholesom laws against whose sacred Person as being Gods annointed or rules of government if any should be so traitterous or seditious as to dare to contrive or conspire they merit the severest degrees of punishment and though they be as near to the Crown in blood as Absalon to King David or as near in trust and Counsels as the grand oraculous politician Achitophel yet no relation or employment can so palliat the blaknesse of their offences but that all good subjects are obliged as Hushai the Archite to preserve their Prince in his royal Crown and dignity and to detect and discover dissipate and destroy all treacherous conspiraces and rebellious Treasons against their Prince This was the resolution and adventure of Noble Hushai who commanded by King David obeyed his royal pleasure and leaving the King in a deplorable sad condition addressed to the usurper and traitor Absalon and seemingly confederated with that unnatural Arch Traitor and Achitophel and his complices but God had so appointed that this loyal subject by his wisdom and fidelity intrapped Absalon to his merited ruine and so infatuated the Councels of Achitophel that the despairing Traitor hanging himself became his own executioner and the rebellious army being routed and totally defeated and Absalon hanged by the head in a tree King David was gloriously restored to the royal City of Hierusalem But least any presume to be loyall Hushites who cannot reasonably merit the opinion or Name of true Royalists and so not prove King Davids friends It is necessary that some characters and distinctions be intermitted for cleerer truth and plainer perspicuiry of what is dross what is sophisticated false and fained mettal and what in this point by the impartial touch stone is judged pure and perfect gold The story of this concernment is a sacred record written by the holy Prophet Samuel p 2 Sam. 15. which describes King Davids danger and deliverance his enemies and his friends presents to the world the undutifulness of an unnatural Son and the rebellious attempts of ambitious and traiterous subjects Absalon was the Arch traitor and Achitophel the cheif Counselour in this foul conspiracy and black Treason and the Prophet as if to forewarn the world from future delusion and infatuation of that kind describes the Traitors and Conspirators Traiterous crimes or marks 1. defamation or detraction First defaming and dishonoring the Kings government sowing sedition and disgracing the royal Courts of Iustice saying 2 Sam. 15.3 See saith Absolon thy matters be good and right but there is no man deputed of the King to hear thee This design was countenanced with the pompe and pride of a popular train 2 Sam. 15.1 to amaze or allure the vulgar 2 Popular pompe pride Absolon prepared Charriots and Horses and fifty men to run before him A great pretence to execute judgement 3 A pretence to do justice and execute judgement and do justice promoted this rebellion so the grand Impostor made way to advance his rebellion saying 2 Sam. 15.4 O that I were made Iudge in the land that every man that hath any suite or cause might come unto me as the Supream Magistrate and cheif Iustice And I would do him justice 4 Restless watching day and night vigilancy diligence and indefatigable industry and attendance to caress and court the people were active practises of this popular politician so Samuel sets forth the traitour in the 2 Sam. 15.2 Absolon rose up early and stood beside the way of the Gate 5 Flattery and adulation and when any man that had a controvercy came to the King for judgement then Absolon called unto him and with oily courtship quickly deluded common capacities and simple credulity this venemous and traiterous infatuation that so swelled the people with avarice and ambition was as epidemick and national as infectious and insnaring 6 Traiterous infection is usually epidmical For on this manner did Absolon to all Israel that came to the King for judgement 2 Sam. 15.6 Traitors usually pules every vain try all tempers and incline all humours to augment and corroberate their party and to effectuate their evil contrivances and machinations 7 Traitors are most courty crafty and fullest of dissimulation And as traitors lay their plots and
2 Sam 15 vers the 32 Behold Hushai the Archite came to meet the King with his coat rent and earth upon his head Loyalty amongst REBELS The True ROYALIST Or HUSHAY the Archite A happy Counsellour in King's DAVID'S Greatest Danger Say unto Absalon I will be thy servant O King 2 Sam. 15.34 I Counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandement and that in Regard of the Oath of God Eccles 8.2 Written by EDWARD WOLLEY D.D. and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Sacred Majesty King CHARLES the II. LONDON Printed for Iohn Williams at the signe of the Crown in S. Paul's Churchyard 1662. To the Right Honourable JOHN Baron Grenvil of Kilkhampton and Biddiford Viscount Grenvil of Lands-Down and Earle of Bathe Groome of the Stool and first Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber Lord Warden of the Stanneryes Lord Lieutenant of the County of Cornwall and High Steward of the Dutchy and Governour of his Majesties Town Island Fort and Castle of the Garrison of Plimouth MY LORD I Have had the honour and happines to know you from your tender years and have discerned your cordial affections and endeavours to serve the Church as an obedient Sonne your Prince as a most Loyal Subject your Countrey as a most faithful Patriot And as Pompey when but a youth to experience your Fortitude fidelity to the Crown and without injury or flattery it may in some degree be said of you as Plutarch writes of that Noble Roman Is etiamnum adolescens totum se factioni Syllanae addixit cumque nec Magistratus nec Senator esset magnum ex Italiâ contraxit exercitum That you were a very early Commander in your youth and those four terrible wounds which you received in the fight at Newberry three in your head and one in your arm Continue those marks and cicatrices which as honourable badges of loyalty will bear you company to your Grave It was a question once started about Ascanius by Andromache whether he was like his Father Aeneas or his Vncle Hector Ecquid in antiquam virtutem animosque viriles Et Pater Aeneas a vunculus excitat Hector Andromache in Virgil Aeneid de Ascanio But there is not any need of such a question concerning your Lordship in whom the varietie of your Noble Ancestors seem to concenter So that the pietie of Richardus de Granâ Villâ who founded the Abbey of Neath in Glamorgan-shire in the fourth year of the raigne of King William Rufus liveth in you The courage of Sir Richard Grenvil your great Grandfather who commanded the Rear-Admiral a Ship called the Revenge wherein he so gallantly behaved himself that in a desperate fight at Sea with the Spaniards he sunk destroyed infinite numbers of Qu. Elizabeths enemies when others made all the sail they could to avoid the danger And the loyalty and great worth of Sir Bevill Grenvill seem as thriving seeds to grow up and flourish in you And it will be an honour and happiness to your Lordship to be not onely a Son and Heire of his Name loynes but of his virtues who so loved the Church of England that in person he guarded the late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury against the fury of the tumultuous Rabbles in all commotions and Rebellions either of England and Scotland in the late blessed Kings Raign he manifested the dutie of a Loyal Subject and of a noble Commander at the fight at Stratton he was successful against the enemie with a handful of men And at the fight at Lands-downe like another Epaminondas though he lost his life he got the Victory Et cum sentiret vulnus esse lethale non prius ferrum eduxit quam audisset Thebanos vicisse tum satis inquit vixi invictus enim morior To encourage his Souldiers he fought with bleeding wounds and finding that his countrey men like Gallant Thebans won the day animam efflavit he fell gloriously into the bosome of true honour renown These exemplars of virtue have doubtless attracted your Resolutions to imitation of your Ancestors and have enflamed your affections with true and right principles of Nobleness and honour But that which renders you most lovely to all who know your Lordship is that incomparable service which by your prudence fidelity secrecy and courage was transacted effected together with the Duke of Albemarle and his brother the Lord Bishop of Hereford in order to his Majesties Restauration which maketh three Kingdomes happy This is the chiefest loadstone motive that makes me address to your Lordship for patronage and protection in this argument wherein I endeavour to prove that truth may be in company with Traitors and Loyalty amongst Rebels as Hushai the Archite who was King Davids best friend and most faithful subject in his greatest danger It is true many worthyes did attend his Majesties Person in pinching extremityes abroad for many years and many thousand loyal Subjects of the three Kingdomes indured insupportable miseries from usurping bloody Wolves at home and the stings of a sort of Trepanning creeping Serpants as equally venemous as dangerous hardly to be avoided These true Royalists were on all occasions active in their persons in their counsels in their relations their friends in their purses and their prayers and by all wayes and interests to promote his Majesties Restauration But your Lordship as a more signal instrument of much happiness hath received gracious markes of Noble trust honour and favour from his Majesty the thanks of all England in the Kingdomes Representative the Parliament which will prove a happy record of your honour to posterity and blessed for ever be those hands and hearts who have contributed much or cast in if but a mite to that blessed work There is another small tender branch which budded seasonably about seven years since and appeared in the Kingdom under the complexion and colour of a Translation in the case and Parallel of Lewis the fourth the French King This first went abroad to keep alive those loyal sparks which lay-under the ashes of Cruelty and Persecution in the year 1654. meeting with curteous tinder it took fire and inflamed many affections towards the King This small piece was reprinted eight moneths before his Majesties return to England and it proved so prosperous that some thousand copies were dispersed vented in fourty houres And then it grew suddenly a publick discourse in the City and Countrey videlicet the Kings Case in the Parallel of Lewis the fourth of France This Branch leans on your Lordships Patronage and favour is added to this discourse to perpetuate all Subjects resolutions in their allegiance to their Princes and as a part of justice and merit that his endeavours nay be discerned who gave it life first fixed and planted it in England and so not to be any longer fathered on adopted authors * Tulit alter honores Virgil. My Lord I shall not afflict your Lordship with any further present trouble but wishing
Kingdomes or Dominions or to authorise any Foreign Prince to invade or annoy him or his Countries or to discharge any of his Subjects of their Allegiance and obedience to his Majesty or to give license or leave to any of them to bear Arms raise Tumults or to offer any violence or hurt to his Majesties Royal Person State or Government or to any of his Majesties Subjects within his Majesties Dominions Also I do swear from my heart that notwithstanding any Declaration or sentence of Excommunication or Deprivation made or granted or to be made or granted by the Pope or his Successours or by any Authority derived or pretended to be derived from him or his See against the said King his Heirs or Successours or any Absolution of the said Subjects from their Obedience I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successours and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by reason or colour of any such Sentence or Declaration or otherwise and will do my best endeavour to disclose and make known unto his Majesty his Heirs and Successours all Treasons and Trayterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be against him or any of them And I do further swear That I do from my heart abhor detest and abjure as impious and heretical this Damnable Doctrine and Position That princes which be excommunicated or deprived by the Pope may be deposed or murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever And I do believe and in conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof which I acknowledge by good and full Authority to be lawfully administred unto me and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary And all these things I doe plainly and sincerely acknowledge swear according to these expresse words by me spoken and according to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words without any equivocation or mental evasion or secret reservation whatsoever And I do make this Recognition and acknowledement heartily willingly and truly upon the true faith of a Christian So help me God c. The Oath of Supremacy I A. B. Do utterly testifie and declare in my conscience that the King 's Highnesse is the onely Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highnesse's Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal And that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forraign Jurisdictions Powrs Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Highnesse his Heirs and lawfull Successours and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preeminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and successours or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the contents of this book These Platforms and models of Oathes as they are of holy use to unite our fidedelity to God and Man so they are of Divine Authority and seem to be influential from Heaven from whence we have the Sacred example so the Scriptures testifie Exod 33.1 Depart hence unto the Land which I swear unto Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Thus divine usage is very frequent with God Deut 1.8.34.35 Psal 95.9 Luk. 1.73 Heb. 6.13 Heb. 7.21 And as God pleased to confirm his promise with an Oath So King David Gods annointed voweth and sweareth calling on God and praying Lord remember David and all his Afflictions how he swear unto the Lord and vowed to the mighty God of Jacob. Psal 132.1 2. And Solomon his royal Son gave Counsel to all his subjects and all the world I counsel thee to keep the Kings commandement and that in regard of the Oath of God Eccles 8.2 Having now set fourth the sacred ☜ Oaths and obligations of the Kings and Queens of England and of some of the cheif Officers and Ministers of State together with the Homage of the Ecclesiastical Hirarchy and temporal Nobility and of the three great Officers of Court the Lord high Steward the Master of the Horse and the Lord Chamberlain by their Oathes as privy counsellors under whose immediate command and power all servants at Court are sworn to fidelity and obedience in their respective relations and ranks of order degrees and subordinations It is plain and easie to every rational subject to discern and see the most excellent form of Government that the prudence and piety of former ages hath conveyed to the English to this present time and we cannot do less then admire and magnifie the gracious providence and riches of Gods favours to the Kingdome of England who hath with the golden chain of harmonious Government so lincked Kings and Queens to himself and all their subjects and people to their soveraign Princes that no Kingdome under the canopy of Heaven hath a better frame of Government either for Church or State or the transaction of Ecclesiastick or civil concernments and affaires in which there is such an incementing concatenation by wholesome laws and customes for justice and the happy preservation of all the peoples Rights that as the King may sit as happily and securely on his Throne as any Monarch on earth so his people may as prosperously thrive under his gracious Government and reposing themselves under their own vines and figtrees as cheerfully enjoy the inestimable blessings of their own just rights and labours Milk and Hony with the overflowing favours of Peace and Plenty How great a crime must it then be to wrest or break one of the invaluable lincks of this golden concatenation which Soveraign Princes graciously please to strengthen and consolidate if possible by their sacred Oathes to God which cannot but indear and more oblige ingenuous subjects to greater exactness of duty and fidelity considering that these pious proceeding are more acts of Grace and voluntary and Princely condescentions flowing from the fountaines of their own royal goodness being methods of high degrees of kindness and love where words or promises and those at their royal wills and pleasure are to be looked on not only as certainties and assurances but as deeds and compleat performances The civil Law expecteth as much from Noble men and Persons of Honour that there words be equally esteemed as their deeds m Promissa nobilinm pro factis habentur And Iser c. 1. Tantum fidei legalitatis presumitur in Nobilibus ut si quicquam promiserint id per equesit certum ac indubitatum ac si jam factum esset And Iser c 1.