Before I dismiss this Subject, it may not be improper, nor foreign to my Purpose, to observe, that the Council of _Nice_, the first General or Oecumenical Council held in the Church, was convened by the Emperor, and not by the Bishop of _Rome_; that the Bishop of _Rome_ did not preside in it either in Person, or by his Legates, as they are pleased to style them; and consequently that the Privilege which they assumed in After-ages of assembling General Councils, and presiding in them, ought to be deemed a most insolent and unwarrantable Usurpation. [Sidenote: _The Council commands all Causes to be finally determined by Provincial Synods._] The Second Thing worthy of notice with respect to this Council is its Fifth Canon, commanding all Ecclesiastical Causes to be finally decided in each Province by a Provincial Synod. The Words of the Canon are clear in themselves, and besides have been understood in this Sense by all the Councils that were held, by all the Authors that writ, for several Ages after[586]; nay, it was understood in this Sense by some of the Popes themselves, namely, by _Innocent_ I. who, in one of his Letters to _Victricius_ Bishop of _Roan_, writes thus; _If any Controversy should arise among the Clerks, whether they be of an inferior or superior Rank, let it be decided, agreeably to the Council of_ Nice, _in an Assembly of the Bishops of the same Province_[587]. 'Tis true, he adds, _without prejudicing the Rights of the_ Roman _See_. But that Restriction is his own, and not the Council’s. Hence this Canon, directing all Causes to be thus tried, all Disputes to be thus ended, was often quoted on occasion of Appeals made to _Rome_, and employed as a Bulwark to restrain the incroaching Power of the Popes within due Bounds; but in Process of Time their Ambition, supported by the Favour of Princes, and the great Temporalities they acquired, bore all down before them. [Sidenote: _The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy first formed._]