Another argument was forcibly put, namely, that the deprived Bishops could not acquire new rights by their deprivation; and that, without new powers, they could not appoint others to succeed them after their own death. He concludes:
"The sum of what has been said is this: there can be no schism by contagion, where there is no principal schismatick: the death of the last survivor of our late invalidly deprived Fathers made the rival of that same survivor no longer a schismatick, by making his occupyed possession a vacancy, which was all that he wanted before for making his occupyed possession perfectly canonical. That death therefore put an end to the last principal schismatick, as a schismatick, as well as to the last invalidly deprived survivor. All the diocesan districts of our National Church are fairly and canonically possessed. Nor could such canonically-possessed districts be invaded by any of our late invalidly-deprived Fathers, or all of them, though synodically assembled, without commencing a new schism from the time of that invasion. What they could not validly, nor without schism, act in their own persons, that they could not authorize others to act in their name. If those Fathers themselves might be allowed such a liberty of invading occupyed districts, they must necessarily have acquired new powers by their invalid deprivations. These things therefore being so, no commissions for powers derived from our late Fathers can excuse the present continuance of the separation from being schismatical."[1]
In Dodwell's opinion they were not called upon to inquire, whether there were any commissions from
- ↑ Case in View now in Fact. Appendix, pp. 47, 48.
