Bishop,
summoned the Bishops of all _Gallia_ and the seven Provinces to convene in
a Council against him; and saith in his Epistle, that his Predecessors had
done the like. Pope _Leo_ I. called a general Council of all the Provinces
of _Spain_ to meet in _Gallaecia_ against the _Manichees_ and
_Priscillianists_, as he says in his decretal Epistle to _Turribius_ a
_Spanish_ Bishop. And in one of his decretal Epistles to _Nicetas_ Bishop
of _Aquileia_, he commands him to call a Council of the Bishops of that
Province against the _Pelagians_, which might ratify all the Synodal
Decrees which had been already ratified by the See of _Rome_ against this
heresy. And in his decretal Epistle to _Anastasius_ Bishop of
_Thessalonica_, he ordained that Bishop should hold two Provincial Councils
every year, and refer the harder causes to the See of _Rome_: and if upon
any extraordinary occasion it should be necessary to call a Council, he
should not be troublesom to the Bishops under him, but content himself with
two Bishops out of every Province, and not detain them above fifteen days.
In the same Epistle he describes the form of Church-Government then set up,
to consist in a subordination of all the Churches to the See of _Rome_: _De
qua forma_, saith he, _Episcoporum quoque est orta distinctio, & magna
dispositione provisum est ne omnes sibi omnia vindicarent, sed essent in
singulis Provinciis singuli quorum inter fratres haberetur prima sententia,
& rursus quidam in majoribus urbibus constituti sollicitudinem sumerent
ampliorem, per quos ad unam Petri Sedem universalis Ecclesiae cura
conflueret, & nihil usque a suo capite dissideret. Qui ergo scit se
quibusdam esse praepositum, non moleste ferat aliquem sibi esse praepositum;
sed obedientiam quam exigit etiam ipse dependat; et sicut non vult gravis
oneris sarcinam ferre, ita non audeat aliis importabile pondus imponere_.
These words sufficiently shew the monarchical form of government then set
up in the Churches of the _Western Empire_ under the Bishop of _Rome_, by
means of the imperial Decree of _Gratian_, and the appeals and decretal
Epistles grounded thereupon.

The same Pope _Leo_, having in a Council at _Rome_ passed sentence upon
_Hilary_ Bishop of _Arles_, for what he had done by a Provincial Council in
_Gallia_, took occasion from thence to procure the following Edict from the
_Western_ Emperor _Valentinian_ III. for the more absolute establishing the
authority of his Se