The English concord in ansvver to Becane's English iarre: together with a reply to Becan's Examen of the English Concord. By Richard Harris, Dr. in Diuinitie.

BECAN. Exam.* 1.1

YOu aske whether those 6. offices, viz. to call Councels; make Ecclesiasticall lawes, confer Benefices, create & depose Bishops, excommunicate the stubborne, & iudge controuersies Ecclesiasticall; did properly belong to Peters Primacy? or which of whose offices hoe exercised as Pri∣mate? But this is not to the matter. The Question is here, whether your Writers agree that your king, as supreme Gouernor, may do those offices? I say they Iarre therein. Do you help them? Touching the power total Councels, D. Tooker iarres with him∣selfe & with Hainric. For Tooker saith that the calling of Coun∣cels doth primarily belong to Kings, and from them is deriued to Bishops. And yet he saith: That the Apostles called Councels by Diuine right. Therefore not from Kings right. Therfore by Di∣uine right, the Apostles successors, that is, Bishops, and not Kings, haue power to call Councels. And this is against Hainric and Tooker himselfe.

D^r. HARRIS Reply.

OVR gratious King Iames in his booke of A∣pology &c. vindicated and proued his right∣full Supreme Power, or Gouernment in all Causes, and ouer all Persons Ecclesiasticall within his Dominions. Vpon that, this Iesuite Becane inferred, That then our King had power to call Councells: To make Ecclesiasticall lawes: To create and depose Bishops: To conferre benefices: To iudge Ecclesiasticall controuer∣sies; otherwise, that he neither was, nor could be Pri∣mate or Head of the Church, because all those were offi∣ces properly belonging to the primacy. Hainric, in his Be∣cano-Baculus, denied that his consequent, as D^r. Harris in his English Concord here doth: because their chiefe Primate, and Head Pope-Peter, did neuer (as Primate) challenge to himselfe, or execute any of those offices; and for that neither in Scripture, nor any Ancient Fa∣ther, is found any of those offices properlie to belong to Peter, as Primate, or Head of the Church. The Ie∣suits forces being too weake to grapple with Hainric therein; Hainric tooke vp Becane his owne description. And thence irrefragably concluded, our King to bee Primate and Head, that is, Supreme Gouernour of this Church. Which is all one, as if he had taken from Be∣cane his owne cudgell, and beaten him soundly black and blew therewith, as became Becano-Baculus to do.

Yet Christian Reader, consider what iust cause Hainric had, and I haue here, to vrge the Iesuite, to shew, especially in this particular, what generall Coun∣cell

cell Peter did call, as Primate; or what Scripture or An∣cient Father did attribute to Peter, as Primate, any power to call generall Councells. All the Iesuites in the world, with all the learning and reading they haue, can not shew it. Whence necessarily, by Popish rule, it will follow, that Peter was not Supreme Primate of the whole Church; and consequently, that the Pope is not Supreme Primate of the said Church.

On the other side, our Writers haue, out of the Scriptures, and Ecclesiastical Histories demonstrated, that the most religious; both, Kings vnder the Law, and Emperours vnder the Gospell, haue called general Councels, for which they are, generally, greatly, and worthily commended. The Iesuite knowing this to be most true, and not able to answere it, runnes into his starting hole, and saith, that it is not to the matter; when inceed it sticks in the very bowels of the matter, and hangs so fixedly in the Popes liuer, as no Iesuiticall Dictamne can draw it forth.

In this one point of Regall Supremacy, the Iesuite can not produce any two of our Writers, who doe not fully agree. As for Hainric and D^r. Tooker, they both write vniformally, that it belongeth to orthodoxall Kings and Emperors, when any such are, to call Coun∣cells. Here therefore the Iesuite, being at a non-plus, and brought to his shifts, faineth a Iarre betweene D^r. Tooker and himselfe. Well, then belike when Bel∣larmine in his writings differeth from himselfe, that is, at least an hundred times, those discords must be sti∣led, Popish Iarres: but how doth Becane proue that D^r. Tooker is in this point against himselfe? Forsooth be∣cause he faith, that the Apostles (viz. when there was

no Christian Emperour) by diuine right, called a Councell. Then the argument runneth thus: All the Apostles ioyntly in time of Persecution, lawfullie called one Councell onely, of some few persons within one Citie. Therfore, in time of Peace, not Christian Emperours, but onely, and all, Bishops in the Christi∣an vvorld, ioyntly must call all generall Councells, throughout the vvhole Christian vvorld.

What cable, strong enough, and long enough, can the Iesuit get, from all the Iesuiticall crue, so to tye these together, that the consequence may hold for good? For heere is a manifold Non sequitur; 1. From one particular act of Apostles, to a generall rule of all Bishops. 2. From times of Persecution, to times of Peace. 3. From times when there were no Christian Emperours to call Councells, vnto times when there were some to call, and indeed did call, all & euery one of the most renowned generall and orthodoxal Coun∣cells, to weet, the first six of them.

Becane dare not say, that the 4. first generall Coun∣cells (which Pope Gregory the great esteemed as the 4. Euangelists) were vnlawfully, or against diuine right, indicted or called; yet were they all called by Empe∣rours, and not by Popes. viz. The first Nicen Councell, by Constantine the great: The first Councell of Con∣stantinople, by Theodosius the first: The first Coūcell of Ephesus, by the Emperor Theodosius the second: The first Councell of Chalcedon, by the Emperour Martian. Vnto which Councells, the Emperours by their Let∣ters, called as well the Popes of Rome, as other Patri∣archs.

If Pope Leo the first, had knowne any such diuine right, of calling generall Councells to be in him, and not in the Emperour, hee would neeuer have stooped so basely, as suppliant vpon his knees, to entreat the Emperour, and the Empresse, by himselfe, and by o∣thers, to call a generall Coūcell: for what else had this beene, but treacherously to request the Emperour to bereaue him of his Diuine right (as Becane heere calls it) and by usurped power, to be practised by the call of generall Councells, to extinguish that Diuine right, & Popish Primacy. That is, to extinguish their Catholick faith. For now the Papall Supremacie, is the very ca∣pitall and maine point, of their Catholick faith.

To shut vp this chapter, & question: Becane sitting vpon his Cathedrall Tripos, should heere determine these two Questions following.

First, whether Bishops onely, or Archbishops one∣lie, or onely Patriarches (for these may not bee con∣founded as one and the same) be the Apostles succes∣sors? Or whether Patriarchs be successors of some of the Apostles; and Archbishops of other-some: and Bishops successors of the lowest, or third rank? And whether one kind onely of these successors, or all three kinds, may call generall Councells?

Secondly, whether all the Bishops in the Christian world, as the Apostles successors, must ioyntly, as all the Apostles did, call generall Councells? or (because that would now proue too-too troublesome) how ma∣ny of them may serue that turne?

Notes

• * 1.1

  Page 154