Yet I do not believe, that they designed at first to run those lengths, or carry the Papal Prerogative to that extravagant height they afterwards did. The success, that attended them in the pursuit of one claim, encouraged them to set up and pursue another. Of this no one can doubt, who peruses with the least attention the Records of those Ages, and compares the Popes in the beginning of the Seventh Century with the Popes in the latter end of the Eleventh. We shall find them, in the first-mentioned period of time, submitting with all humility to Princes; claiming no kind of authority or jurisdiction whatsoever but in virtue of the Canons of Councils, or the Rescripts of Emperors; glorying, or pretending to glory, in the humble title of _Servants of Servants_; acknowlegeing themselves Subjects and Vassals of the Emperors, and patiently waiting the will and pleasure of their liege Lords to take upon them the Episcopal dignity, or exercise the functions of that office. Such were the Bishops of _Rome_ in the beginning of the Seventh Century. How different from those in the latter end of the Eleventh! They were then vested with the _Plenitude of all power_, both Spiritual and Temporal; above Councils, and uncontrouled by their Canons; the fountain of all pastoral jurisdiction and authority; and, by Divine Sanction, impowered to enact, establish, abrogate, suspend, all Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions: they were then become _Lords and Masters_, the most haughty and imperious Lords, the most severe Masters, mankind had ever groaned under: they no more begged, but dispensed titles, boasting a power of setting up Kings, and pulling them down at pleasure; of calling them to an account, absolving their subjects from their allegiance, divesting them of their dominions, and treating in every respect as their slaves and vassals, those, whom one of their best and greatest Predecessors[9] had acknowleged _superior to all Men_, and thought himself _in duty bound to obey_. This _Plenitude of power_, as they style it, was not acquired at once, but by degrees, as I have observed above; some of the Popes being more, and some less active, crafty, and aspiring. But what is very remarkable, of the one hundred and fourteen between _Boniface_ III. who laid the foundation of the Papal grandeur, and _Gregory_ VII. who raised it to the highest pitch, not one ever lost an inch of ground his Predecessors had gained. And thus, by constantly acquiring, and never parting with what they had acquired, nay, and tying the hands of their Successors by the irreversible entail of a Divine Right, they became the sole Spiritual Lords, and had almost made themselves the greatest Temporal Lords of the whole Christian world.