the opponents of the Nonjurors used other plausible arguments against them, so as to evade the recognition of the right of the civil magistrate to deprive.[1]
On such grounds, which are stated at great length and enforced with much learning and argument, Dodwell urges the re-union with the Bishops in possession, whenever the sees of the deprived Prelates should be vacant by death or resignation. Such is the aim of the "Case in View," &c. the title of which most distinctly explains the character of the work.
In the previous year, 1704, he published in Latin his "Parænesis to Foreigners," concerning the English Schism. This work charges the schism on the complying Bishops; but still there was nothing inconsistent between his views at this period, and those which are put forth in his "Case in View" and his subsequent publications. He always charged the schism on the Bishops, who complied, though, when the deprived Prelates were removed by death, he thought that the breach should be healed by a sub-
- ↑ Case in View, pp. 62, 63. Many severe reflections were cast upon the Nonjurors, as if they were determined to overturn the government. The great majority, however, had no such desire. They merely wished to live quietly under the government. The case is well put in the following extract: "If it be said that this negative contains something positive, and implies malice and enmity against the government, I answer, this is their construction, not ours: why may it not imply as well tenderness of mind and conscience towards God? Or why may it not imply a disability to wind ourselves out of our former principles? Charity would think one of these. 'Tis hard that they will judge of our thoughts, but 'tis harder yet to fasten an arbitrary sense of them, and then to punish that sense of their own imposing, which is to punish not our thoughts, but their own, nay 'tis to punish us for their thoughts." The Present State of Jacobinism in England. A Second Part in Answer to the First, 4to. London, 1702, p. 10.
