Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/214

196 contains a most clear exposition of the state of the question. He next presses this proposition, that sentence is to be given in favour of the actual possessors of sees, when there is no dispossessed rival, who can present a better title. The point is pursued at considerable length: and then the author advances another position, that when there is only one Bishop in a district, a separation can no more be justified than it could have been before altar was erected against altar. After discussing this position, he argues that the nullity of schismatical consecrations and ordinations ceases when there are no rivals, and that orders then become valid, though they were not so originally while the rival Bishops survived. He supposes, that some of the Nonjurors might consider new consecrations necessary, before the complying Bishops, who were regarded as schismatics, could receive the powers, which in their opinion they had not while the schism existed. His own opinion was different. He says, "I see no reason why the nullity may not cease together with the schism: on the contrary, it ought to do so, if the nullity was wholly grounded on the schism: if their being nulli be a consequence of their being secundi."

From this question, he proceeds to another, that of doctrine. He is of opinion, that their attachment to the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance will not oblige them to keep up the separation. This is a point of great importance in the controversy: and most persons must wish to see the workings of such a mind as Dodwell's on such a subject. He thus argues the question, after alluding to the separations