THREE SPEECHES OF SIR EDWARD DEARINGS, Knight and Baronet in the Commons House of Parliament.  

The first concerning the freedom of Mr. Wilson, a Minister in Kent.  
The second at a grand Committee of the whole house for Religion.  
The third at a delivery of a Petition out of Kent, concerning the present government of the Church.   
LONDON, Printed for John Stafford, in Chancerylane over against the rolls. 1641.   

A SPEECH MADE BY SIR EDWARD DEARING KNIGHT AND Baronet, in the Commons house of Parliament concerning the freedom of Master Wilson, upon the tenth day of Novemer, 1640.  
Mr. SPEAKER,  
YEsterday the affairs of this House did borrow all the time allotted to the great Committee for Religion. I am sorry that having but half a day in a whole week, we have lost that.  
Mr. Speaker, It hath pleased God to put into the heart of his majesty (for the King's heart is in the hand of the Lord) once more to assemble us into a Senate, to consult upon the unhappy distractions, the sad dangers, & the much feared ruins of this last flourishing Church and kingdom. God be praised both for his goodness, and for his severity wherewith he hath impelled this meeting; and humble thanks unto his majesty whose parental care of us his Subjects, is willing to relieve us.  
The sufferances that we have undergone are reducible to two heads. The first concerning the Church: the second belonging to the Commonwealth. The first of these must have the first fruits of this Parliament, as being the first in write and worth, and more immediate to the honour of God and his Glory, every dram whereof is worth the whole weight of a kingdom.  
The commonwealth (it is true) is full of apparent dangers. The sword is come home unto us, and the two twinne-Nations united together under one royal head, brothers together in the bowels and the bosom of the same Island, and which is above all imbanded together with the same Religion (I say the same Religion) by a devilish machination, like to be fatally imbread in each others blood, ready to dig each others grave Quantillum abfuit?  
For other grievances also, the poor disheartened subject, sadly groans, not able to distinguish betwixt Power and Law. And with a weeping heart (no question) hath prayed for this hour, in hope to be relieved, and to know hereafter, whether any thing he hath, besides his poor part and portion of the Common air he breathes, may be truly called his own.  
These (Mr. Speaker) and many other do deserve and must shortly have our deep regard but Suo gradu, not in the first place: There is a unum necessarium above all our worldly sufferances and dangers. Religion the immediate service due unto the honour of Almighty God. And herein let us all be confident, that all our consultations will prove unprosperous, if we put any determination before that of Religion.  
For my part, Let the sword reach from the North to the South, and a general perdition of all our remaining right and safety, threaten us in open view, it shall be so far from making me to decline the first settling of Religion, that I shall ever argue, and rather conclude it thus. The more great, the more imminent our perils of this world are, the stronger and quicker ought our care to be, for the Glory of God and the pure Law of our souls.  
If then (Mr. Speaker) it may pass with full allowance, that all our cares may give way unto the treaty of Religion, I will reduce that also to be considered under two heads: first of ecclesiastic persons, then of ecclesiastic causes. Let no man start or be affrighted at the im at the imagined length of this consultation, it will not, it cannot take up so much time as it is worth.— This it is God and the King, this is God and the kingdom, nay, this is God and the two kingdom's cause.  
And therefore (Mr. Speaker) my humble motion is, that we may all of us seriously, speedily, and heartily enter upon this, the best, the greatest, the most important cause we can treat of.  
Now (Mr. Speaker) in pursuit of my own motion, and to make a little entrance into this great affair, I will present unto you the petition of a poor oppessed Minister in the County of Kent: A man Orthodox in his Doctrine, conformable in his life, laborious in the ministry as any we have, or I do know.  
He is now a sufferer (as all good men are) under the general obliquity of a Puritan, as with other things was excellently delivered by that silver trumpet at the bar. The pursuivant watches his door, and divides him and his cure asunder, to both their griefs: For it is not with him as (perhaps) with some that set the pursuivant at work, gladded of an excuse to be out of their Pulpit, It is his delight to Preach.  
About a week since I went over to Lambeth, to move that great Bishop (too great indeed) to take this danger off from this Minister, and to recall the pursuivant. And withal I did undertake for Master Wilson (for so your Petitioner is called) that he should answer in any his accusers, of the King's Courts at Westminster.  
The Bishop made me answer (as near as I can remember) in haec verba, I am sure that he will not be absent from his cure a twelvemonth together, and then (I doubt not) but once in a year we shall have him.  
This was all I could obtain, but I hope, (by the help of this house) before this year of threats run round, His Grace will either have more Grace, or no Grace at all. For our manifold griefs do fill a mighty and a vast Circumferance, yet so that from every part our lives of sorrow, do lead unto him, and point at him the centre, from, whence our miseries in this Church, and many of them in the Common wealth do grow.  
Let the Petition be read, and let us enter upon the work.   

A SPEECH AT A Grand Committee of the whole house for Religion.  
YOu have many private Petitions, give me leave (by word of mouth) to interpose one more general, which thus you may receive. God's true Religion is violently invaded by two seeming enemies: But indeed they are (like Herod and Pilate) fast friends for the destruction of Truth. I mean the Papists for one party, and our Prelating faction for the other. Between these two in their several progress, I observe the concurrence of some few parallels, fit (as I conceive) to be represented to this honourable House.  
First with the Papists, there is a severe Inquisition: and with us (as it is used) there is a bitter high Commission; both these (contra fas & jus) are judges in their own cause: yet herein their Inquisitors are better than our High Commissioners— They (for aught I ever heard) do not (saevire in suos) punish for delinquents and offenders, such as profess and practice, according to the Religion established by the laws of the Land where they live.  
But with us how many poor distressed Ministers? nay how many scores of them, in a few years past, have been suspended, degraded, deprived, excommunicated, not guilty of the breach of any our established laws. The petitions of many are here with us, more are coming: All their prayers are in haven for redress.  
Secondly, with the Papist, there is a Mysterious artifice I mean their Index expurgatorius whereby they clip the tongues of such witnesses, whose evidence they do not like.— To this I parallel our late Imprimatur's: Licences for the press: so handled that the Truth is suppressed, and Popish pamphlets fly abroad cum privilegio: witness audacious and Libelling Pamphlets against True Religion; written by Pocklington, Heyling, Dow, Cosins, Shelford, Swan, Reeves, Yates, Hausted, Studley, sparrow, Brown, Robertes, Ironside,— Many more: I name no Bishops, but I add, &c.  
Nay they are already grown so bold in this new trade, that the most learned labours of our ancient and best Divines, must be now corrected and defaced with a Deleatur by a supercilious pen of my Lord's young Chapline; (fit perhaps) for the techincall arts, but unfit to hold the chair for Divinity.  
But herein the Roman Index is better than are our English Licences: They thereby do preserve the current of their own established doctrines: a point of wisdom. But with us our Innovators by this artifice do altar our settled Doctrines; Nay they do subinduce points repugnant and contrariant. And this I dare assume upon myself to prove.  
One parallel more I have, and that is this. Among the Papists, there is one acknowledged supreme Pope, supreme in honour, in order, and in power: from whose judgement there is no appeal.— I confess (M. Speaker) I cannot altogether match a Pope with a Pope: (yet one of the ancient titles of our English Primate was Alterius orbis Papa.) But thus far I can go, Ex ore suo. It is in Print.— he pleads fair for a Patriarchtae: And for such an one, whose judgement, he (Beforehand) professeth aught to be final: and then (I am sure) it ought to be unerring.  
Put these together and you shall find that the final determination of a Patriarch will want very little of a Pope— and then we may say— mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur—  
He pleads Popeship under the name of a Patriarch. And I much fear lest the end and top of his patriarchal plea may be as that of Cardinal Pole (his predecessor) who would have two heads, one Caput Regale, another Caput Sacerdotale: a proud parallel, to set up the mitre as high as the crown.  
But herein I shall be free and clear, if one there must be (Be it a Pope, be it a Patriach;) this I resolve upon for my own choice (Procul a Jove procul a fulmine.) I had rather serve one as far off as Tiber, then to have him come so near me as the Thames. A Pope at Rome will do me less hurt than a Patriarch may do at Lambeth.  
I have done, and for this third parallel I submit it to the wisdom and consideration of this grand Committee for Religion, in the mean time I do ground my motion, upon the former two, and it is this in brief.  
That you would please to select a subcommittee of a few, and to empower them for the discovery of the numbers of oppressed Ministers under the Bishop's tyranny for these ten years' last past. We have the complaint of some, but more are silent: some are patient and will not complain, others are fearful and dare not, many are beyond Sea and cannot complain.  
And in the second place, that the subcommittee may examine the Printers what books by bad Licences have been corruptly issued forth: and what good books have been (like good ministers) silenced, Clipped or cropped.  
The work I conceive will not be difficult, but will quickly return into your hand full of weight.  
And this is my Motion.   

A SPEECH AT THE DELIVERY of a Petition out of Kent, concerning the present Government of the Church.  
Mr. SPEAKER.  
YEsterday we did regulate the most important business before us: and gave them motion, so that our great and weighty affairs, are now on their feet in their progress, journing on towards their several periods, where some I hope will shortly find their latest home.  
Yet among all these I observe one, a very main one, to sleep sine die: give me leave to awaken it; It is a business of an immense weight, and worth; such as deserves our best care, and most severe circumspection. I mean the Grand Petition long since given in by many thousand Citizens against the domineering Clergy.  
Wherein (for my part) although I cannot approve of all that is presented unto you, yet I do clearly profess, that a great part of it, nay the greatest part thereof, is so well grounded, that my heart goes cheerful along therewith.  
It seems that my country (for which I have the honour to serve) is of the same mind, and least that you should think that all faults are included within the walls of Troy, they will show you Iliacos intra muros peccatur & extra.  
The same greivances which the city groans under, are provincial unto us, and I much fear they are national among us all.  
The Pride, the Avarice, the Ambition and oppression, by our ruling Clergy is epidemical, it hath infected them all. There is not any, or scarce any of them, who is not practical in their own great cause in hand, which they impiously do miscall, the Piety of the times, but in truth, so wrong a Piety that I am bold to say, In facinus jurasse putes.—  
Here in this Petition is the disease represented, here is the cure entreated.  
The number of your Petitioners is considerable, being above five and twenty hundred names, and would have been four times as many, if that were thought material.  
The matter in the Petition is of high import: But your Petitioners themselves are all of them quiet and silent at their own houses, humbly expecting and praying the resolution of this great Senate, upon these their earnest and thrice hearty desires.  
Here is no noise, no numbers at your door: they will be neither your trouble nor your jealousy; for I do not know of any one of them this day in the town: So much they do affy in the justice of their Petition, & in the goodness of this House.  
If now you want any of them here, to make avowance of their Petition, I am their servant. I do appear for them and for myself, and am ready to avow this Petition, in their names, and in my own.  
Nothing doubting, but fully confident, that I may justly say of the present usage of the Hierarchy in the Church of England, as once the Pope (Pope Adrian as I remember) said of the Clergy in his time: A vertice capitis and plantam pedis, nihil est sanum in toto ordine ecclesiastico.  
I beseech you read the Petition, regard us, and relieve us.   
FINIS.