Dodwell was resident at Oxford, as Camdenian Lecturer, at the Revolution. At an early period, he endeavoured to prevent persons from taking the Oath of Allegiance to the new Sovereigns. As some individuals imagined, that the Oath only required them to live peaceably under the new government, without attempting to disturb the Revolution settlement, Dodwell came forward in "A Cautionary Discourse of Schism with a particular regard to the case of the Bishops who are suspended for refusing to take the new Oath." At that time he hoped to prevent the deprivation of the Bishops. With respect to the Oath, he argued that it pledged the parties, who took it, never to do any thing to promote the cause of the King de jure. This, he said, was the view of the loyalists in the time of Cromwell, who could not take the Oaths which were then adopted. His great anxiety, therefore, was that the Oath should not be imposed, foreseeing that a schism must inevitably arise, should such be the case. His main points in the "Cautionary Discourse" were these; that neither the state, nor their fellow Bishops could deprive them of their spiritual characters, and that they could not be deprived by a Synod, since the Bishops, who would be
talents in Calamy's Account of his residence in Oxford. "I had also, while at Oxford, frequent and familiar conversation with the celebrated Mr. Henry Dodwell, certainly as great a master of the historical part of learning as mostmen." Calamy says that he wished to ingross the conversation to himself; that this was disliked: "but it suited my purpose well enough, who aimed at nothing by being in his company, but the getting some benefit from his great reading. I soon discovered his usual time of being at the coffee house, and would often contrive to be there, that I might have his company." He remarks that he was pleased when difficulties were proposed: "upon starting anything of this kind, he would pour out a flood of learning with great freedom." Calamy's Life, i. 281, 282.
