MASTER GRIMSTON HIS WORTHY AND LEARNED SPEECH: SPOKEN In the High Court of PARLIAMENT. CONCERNING troubles ABROAD, AND grievances AT HOME. Showing The inward Symptoms and Causes of all our fears and Dangers. And what probability there is of Reformation, in case due punishment be speedily executed on Incendiaries, and chief Causers of those Distractions, that have oppressed our Church, and commonwealth.  
London, Printed for W. H. 1641.   

Master GRIMSTON HIS Learned Speech in Parliament.  
Mr Speaker,  
There hath now a great and weighty business been presented to this house, & a Letter hath been read importing a dicesion of the King's natural Subjects.  
Mr. Speaker, this is a great case, and very worthy of the consideration and advisement of this great counsel; but i am very much mistaken, if there be not a case here at home, of as great a danger as that now put to be abroad, the one stands without the door (for so dangers from thence, in all our histories, have ever been termed:) but the case that I would put, is a case of danger already upon our backs.  
And in those great cases of danger, which so much concern the welfare of the body politic we ought to do in them like skilful physicians that are not led in their judgements so much by the outward expressions of a Disease, as by the inward symptoms, and causes of it. For it fares with a body politic, as it doth with a body natural: It is impossible to cure an ulcerous body, unless you first cleanse the veins, and purge the body from those obstructions, and pestilential humours that overcharge Nature, and being once done too, botches, blains, and scabs, that grew upon the superficies and outside of the body, dry up, shed, and fall away of themselves.  
Mr. Speaker, the danger that hath now been presented to the house, it standeth at a far distance, & i wish heartily, that it were further off; yet as it stands at a far distance, it is so much the less dangerous. But the case that i shall put, is a case of great danger here at home, domestic: & therefore so much the more dangerous, because it is homebred, and runs in the veins.  
And, Mr. Speaker, if the one shall appear, to be of as great danger, as the other, i hope it will not be thought unreasonable at this time, to put the one as well as the other; And the case that I would put, is this.  
The Charter of our liberties called Magna Charta was granted unto us by King John,; which was but a renovation and a restitution of the ancient laws of this kingdom. This Charter was afterwards in the succession of several ages, confirmed unto us above thirty several times, and in the third year of his majesty's reign that now is, we had no more than a bare confirmation of it. For we had an Act declaratory past, and then to put it out of all question and dispute for the future, his Majesty by his gtatious answer, Soit droit comme est desire, invested it with the title of Petition of right,  
Master Speaker.  
It may be some may object, Parturiunt montes etc I promised to present the house with a case of very great danger here at home, but the Mountain at last hath brought forth nothing but a Mouse, That this case is not worthy the name of a case, and so not worthy the putting.  
And truly, for mine own part, i should have been of the same opinion (had not some expositors, contrary to the laws of God, and Man, and reason, & i am sure contrary to the Dictamen of their own Consciences) marred the text with their expositions, undermining the liberty of the Subjects, with new invented subtle distinctions, and assuming to themselves a power (I know not where they had it) out of Parliament, to supersede, annihilate and make void the laws of this kingdom.  
What sad effects, these ways and opinions have produced, I am confident, his Majesty hath neither seen nor heard, as we have felt them. And it is now his majesty's goodness and Piety, to give us leave to speak them, and to present them with our grievances, which are not few.  
Mr. Speaker, the commonwealth hath been miserably torn and macerated, and all the proprieties, and Liberties shaken: the Church distracted, the gospel and Professors of it persecuted, and the whole kingdom overrun with Multitudes, and swarms of projecting Cater-wormes, and Caterpillars, the worst of all the Egyptian Plagues.  
Then as the case now stands with us, I conceive there are two poinis very considerable.  
The first is, what hath been done any way to impeach the Liberty of the Subject, contrary to the Petition of Right.  
The second is, who have been the Authors and Causers of it.  
Mr. Speaker, the serious examination and decision of those two questions, do highly concern his Majesty in the point of Honour, and his subjects in the point of Interest: and all that I shall say to it is but the words that Ezra did to King Artaxerxes, to the settlement of that State: which at that time was as much out of frame and order▪ as ours is at this present; and which cured theirs, I hope will cure ours. His words were these.  
Whosoever hath not done the Law of God, and the Law of the King, let judgement be speedily executed upon him, whether it be unto death, or unto banishment, or unto Confication of goods, or to Imprisonment.  
Now, M. Speaker, it may be some do think this a strange text, and is't possible! Some may think it as strange a case. As for the text, every man may read it, that will. And for the case, I am afraid there are but few here, which do not experimentally know it, to be as bad as I have put it: And how to mend a bad case, is part of the business we met about. His Majesty hath graciously confirmed unto us, our great and ancient privilege of freedom of Speech: and having his Kingly word for it, i shall rest confidently upon it, as the greatest security under heaven. And whilst i have the honour to have a place here, I shall with humility be bound to express myself as a freeman.  
The Diseases and Distempers that are now in our body politic, are grown to that height, that they pray for, and importune a Cure. And his Majesty out of his tender care, and Affection to his people, like a nursing Father, hath now freely offered himself to hear our prayers and Complaints.  
Mr. Speaker,  
We cannot complain that we want good laws; for the wit of man cannot invent better than are already made; There want only some Examples, that such as have been the Authors, and causets of all miseries, and distractions in Church and Common wealth, contrary to those good laws which be like treacle to expel the poison of mischief out of others,  
But my part is but ostendere Portam, and rherefore having put the Case, I must leave it to the judgement of this house, whether our dangers here at home be not as great and considerable; as that which was even now presented.  
FINIS.