A WORTHY SPEECH SPOKEN BY Sir John Wray IN PARLIAMENT.  
November the thirteenth, concerning episcopal Authority and Lordly primacy of the Bishops in these our times. 1641.  
Printed in the year 1641.   

SIR John WRAYES SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT, November the thirteenth, concerning episcopal Authority, And Lordly Primacy of the Bishops in these our times. 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 States of prelacy, This is their temporal foundation of main objections.  
Here I demand of them unto what Church this great Charter was granted? And whether it were not granted to the Church of God in England; let the words of Magna Charta decide this Concessimus pro nobis & in perpetuum, quod Ecclesia Anglia Libera. sit habeaque omnia sua jura Integra, & libertates suas &c.  
Now by this Charter if it bee rightly interpnted, there is first proposition made that Honour and Worship should bee yielded unto God, as truly and indeed belongs to him.  
Secondly, That not onely such writes and liberties as the King and his progenitors, but also such as God had endowed the Church of England with, should bee Inviolably preserved and indeed such onely are to bee preserved: indeed such onely are to bee called the Rights and Liberties of the Church of England, which God himself hath given by Law unto the universal Church, and not that which the Kings of England by their Charter have bequeathed to the particular Church of England: And this wee doubt was the cause that moved Henry the eight so effectually and powerfully to bend himself against the Popes supremacy usuped at that time over the Church of England, for( saith the King) wee will hazard of our 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 in England, not being free, according to the great Charter, but in bondage and servitude of the Sea of Rome, contrary to the love of God. The King judged it to stand highly with his Honour, and with his oath to reform, redress, and amend the abuses of the same See.  
If therefore it might please our gracious sovereign Lord King CHARLES: that now is in imitation of that his Noble progenitors to vouchsafe in abolishment of all Lordly supremacy executed by Archepiscopall, and episcopal authority over his ministers of Christ, his highnesse in so doing, would noe more rightly be charged with the violence of the great Charter, then might K. H. 8. With the banishment of Popes supremacy, or then our late sovereign queen Elizab. 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 straitly 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 then used and confirmed by the said Charter unto the Church, that then was supposed to be the Church of God in England, then belike King Henry the eight might be attained to have gone against the great Charter, and against his Oath, when by the overthrow of abbeys and Monasteries, he took away the rights, and liberties of Abbys, and Frierys, for the express word of the Charter Abbys and Frierys, had as large and ample a patent, for their rights and liberties as Arch-bishops, or Bishops can at this day callenge for their primacy.  
If then the rights, and liberties, of the one as being against the law of God, be duly and lawfully taken away, notwithstanding any matter, clause, or sentence, contained in the great Charter, the other have but little reason under the colour of the great Charter to stand upon their pantofles, and contend for their Painted sheathes. For this is a Rule and maxim in Gods laws, Quod inomni Iuramen●o, 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, bee indeed, and truth conferred unto them, by the holy Law of God; I suppose the Kings Highnesse as successor to King Henry the Eight, and as most just inheritor to 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 unreasonable and evil custom. Wherefore I beseech your grave and judicious minds to take these precedent premises into your sage considerations, and you shall then immediately, conceive a faire conclusion.  
FINIS.