An occasional SPEECH MADE TO THE house OF COMMONS this Parliament, 1641.  
Against Bishops.  
BY Sir JOHN WRAY, Knight and Baronet.  
Being none of the 8. Speeches before published.  
LONDON, Printed for John NICHOLSON. 1641.   

Sir JOHN WRAYES SPEECH concerning BISHOPS, 1641.  
THe first challenge for Lordly primacy hath of old been grounded out of the great Charter, by which they hold an episcopal primacy or jurisdiction to belong to their state of prelacy: this is their temporal foundation and main object Here I demand of them unto what Church this great Charter was granted, and whether it were not granted unto the Church of GOD in England? Let the words of the Magna Charta decide this which are these; Concessimus Deo pro nobis in perpetuum, quod Ecclesia Anglioana libera sit, habeat omnia Iura sua Integra & libertates suas illaesas. Now by this Charter, if it bee rightly interpnted, there is first provision made, that honour and worship be yielded unto GOD, as truly and indeed belong unto him.  
Secondly, that not only such Rights and Liberties as the King and his progenitors, but also that such as God had endowed the Church of England with, which God himself hath given by his Law unto the universal Church, and in that which the Kings of England by their Charter have bequeathed to the particular Church of England, and this we doubt not was the cause that moved Hen. 8. so effectually and powerfully to bend himself against the Popes Supremacy, usurped at that time over the Church of England, for, saith the King, we will with hazard of life and loss of our crown uphold and defend in our realms whatsoever we shall know to be the will of God.  
The Church of God then in England not being free, according to the great Charter, but in bondage and servitude to the See of Rome, contrary to the Law of God, the King judged it to stand highly with his honor, and his Oath to reform, redress, and amend the abuses of the same See.  
If then it might please our gracious sovereign Lord King Charles, that now is, in Imitation of that his noble Progenitor to vouchsafe an abolishment of all Lordly primacy executed by Archepiscopall & episcopal authority over the Ministers of Christ, his Highnesse in so doing could no more rightly be charged with the violation of the great Charter, then might K. Henry the 8. with the banishment of the Popish Supremacy, or then our late sovereign Lady Q Elizabeth could be justly burdened with the breach of her oath by the establishment of the gospel. Now if the Kings of England by reason of their oath were so straightly tied to the words of the great Charter, that they might not in any sort have disannulled any supposed Rights, or Liberties of the Church used & confirmed by the said Charter unto the Church, that then was supposed to be the Church of God in England, then belike K. Henry 8. might be attainted to have gone against the great Charter & against his oath, when by the overthrow of Abbeys and Monasteries he took away the Rights and Liberties of the Abbots and Priors, for by express words of the great Charter, Abbots and Priors had as large and ample a Pa●tent for their Rights and Liberties, as our Archbishops and Bishops, can at this day challenge for their Primacy.  
If then the Rights and Liberties of the one, as being against the Law of God, be duly & lawfully takes away, notwithstanding any matter, clause or sentence contained in the great Charter, the other having but little reason by colour of the great Charter to stand upon their pantofles, and to contend for their painted Sheaves, for this is a Rule and maxim in Gods laws; that In omni Iuramento semper excipitur authoritas majoris.  
unless then they be able to justify by the holy Scriptures, that such Rights and Liberties, as they pretend for their spiritual Primacy over the Ministers of Christ, be in dead & truth inferred unto them by the holy law of God, I suppose the Ks. Highnesse( as successor to H. 8. and as most just inheritor of the crown of England) by the words of the great Charter, and by his oath, is bound utterly to abolish all Lordly Primacy, as hitherto upheld and defended, partly by ignorance and partly by an unreasonable and evil custom.  
FINIS.