virtue of their paramount Authority, the Clergy as well as the People, and extorting from both large Sums, to support the Pomp and Luxury in which they lived. The Custom of appointing Vicars and Legates may well be alleged as a remarkable Instance of the Craft and Policy of the Popes, since, of all the Methods they ever devised (and many they have devised) to extend and establish their Power, none has better answered their ambitious Views. But how _Bellarmine_ could lay so much Stress upon it as he does[1193], to prove, that the Pope has, by _Divine Right_, a sovereign Authority and Jurisdiction over all the Churches of the Earth, is unconceivable. [Sidenote: _The sending Legates no Proof of the Pope’s universal Jurisdiction._] For it is certain, beyond all Dispute, that such a Custom had never been heard of till the Time of _Damasus_, that is, till the Latter-end of the Fourth Century, when it was first introduced, upon the dismembering of _East Illyricum_, by _Gratian_, from the Western Empire. _Damasus_ did not even then claim that sovereign and unlimited Power, with which _Bellarmine_ is pleased to vest him, but only a kind of Inspection over the Provinces of the Western Empire, as Bishop of the first See. [Sidenote: _The Disingenuity of_ Bellarmine.] And here I cannot help observing the Disingenuity of _Bellarmine_, who, in speaking of this Institution, expresses himself thus: Leo _appointed_ Anastiasius _Bishop of_ Thessalonica _his Vicar in the East, in the same manner as the Predecessors of_ Anastasius _had been Vicars to the Predecessors of_ Leo[1194]. From these Words every Reader would naturally conclude, and _Bellarmine_ designs they should, that the Bishops of _Thessalonica_ had been the Pope’s Vicars from the Beginning, or Time out of Mind; whereas it is certain, that this Institution had taken place but a few Years before. Pope _Leo_ I. in conferring on _Anastasius_ the _Vicariate Dignity of his See_, as he styles it, declared, that he followed therein the Example of his Predecessor _Syricius_[1195], _who first appointed_ Anysius _to act in his stead_. But he was doubly mistaken; for these Vicars were first instituted, as is notorious, by _Damasus_, and not by _Syricius_; and it was not by _Syricius_, but by _Damasus_, that _Anysius_ was vested with that Dignity[1196]. The Bishop of _Thessalonica_ is styled, by the antient Writers, the Pope’s Vicar in _East Illyricum_, which is manifestly confining his Vicariate Jurisdiction to that District; but _Bellarmine_ extends it at once all over the East, by distinguishing him with the Title of _the Popes Vicar for the East_[1197]. But how little Regard was paid to the Pope’s Authority in the East, I have sufficiently shewn above.