The Coronation and the Oath of Allegiance

Ahead of the Coronation of King Charles III this coming Saturday (6th May), the Witness Bearing Committee of the RPCS has issued the following statement:

Given the announcement that the public – both in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere – will be invited to swear the Oath of Allegiance to King Charles III as part of his Coronation Service, we would warn our members against rashly taking oaths or vows.

The Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that ‘The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear, and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence: therefore to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name…is sinful, and to be abhorred’ (X.II). (See Deuteronomy 6:13; Matthew 5:34, 37; James 5:12).

It also warns that: ‘Whosoever taketh an oath, ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act’ (X.III). (See Exodus 20:7)

In our judgement, calling on people to take this oath in their living rooms while watching an ecumenical service being broadcast will result in many millions of people breaking the Third Commandment, by taking the oath without any consideration of the weightiness of so solemn an act or any thought of the God in whose name they are swearing. We are warned that ‘the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain’ (Exodus 20:7).

Furthermore, we would urge our members to consider the implications of swearing to pay true allegiance to His Majesty ‘according to law’. That law, as defined earlier in the coronation service by the King’s Coronation Oath, includes preserving the ‘doctrine, worship, discipline and government’ of the Church of England ‘as by law established in England’. It also involves ‘preserv[ing] unto the Bishops and Clergy of England…all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to any of them’ – which includes their right to civil rule over us by virtue of their membership of Parliament.

As Presbyterians we cannot but protest at the imposition of Diocesan Bishops into the Church without any warrant from the Word of God, as well as the attribution to the Monarch the title of ‘Supreme Governor’ of the Church, in place of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Solemn League and Covenant pledges us to the ‘extirpation of prelacy’, not to pledge allegiance to a monarch who is vowing to uphold it.

The King will also swear an addition made to the Coronation Oath made in 1937, ‘to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom’ and their other realms and territories ‘according to their respective laws and customs’, many of which are directly contrary to the Word of God. Our Confession of Faith, on the other hand, says that the civil magistrate is only to rule according to the ‘wholesome laws of each commonwealth’ (XXIII.II). In line with God’s word, it also states that it is the ‘duty’ of the civil magistrate to take order ‘that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed’ (XXIII.III). See 2 Samuel 23:3; Psalm 2:10-12; Psalm 82:3; Isaiah 49:2 1 Timothy 2:2.

In closing, we note with sadness the new preamble to the Coronation Oath which claims, in the face of all the evidence, that the Church of England ‘is committed to the true profession of the Gospel’. The gospel is what our nation needs more than anything else. As the Moderator of the Church of Scotland will say when presenting the King with a Bible during the service, ‘this book [is] the most valuable thing that this world affords’. Only when that book is read and the One it speaks of – Jesus Christ – is acknowledged, loved, trusted and obeyed, will our beloved nations be brought back from their current moral confusion and hopelessness. We pray and work to that great end.