the notion that Hickes had a leaning towards Rome. He classes the revolution Bishops under the third head, making them usurpers and maintainers of false doctrines. The false doctrines are the doctrine of resistance and the validity of lay-deprivations. He says, "before I proceed to insist upon the Prayers, I must apply what I have said of doctrines: and take the freedom to tell you, that the Bishops to whose altar you are going, are still Anti-Bishops (viz. in the second sense, upon the score of damnable and dangerous doctrines) to those, whom it is said our deprived fathers left behind them to succeed them, not as diocesan but Catholic successors, or as Catholic Bishops in a nation overrun with schism as well as rebellion: in which capacity, as Catholic Bishops, they acted out of their dioceses all their time in confirming, ordaining,"[1] &c. He then enters on the question of the Prayers; but as this point has been so fully discussed already, it need not be enlarged upon further. The Bishops, who complied at the Revolution and had been continued in their sees, are set aside on the ground of being partakers of the guilt of the intruders, by making themselves one body with them.
It is, however, important to see how Hickes justifies the Nonjurors against the arguments of Dodwell and Nelson, relative to the new consecrations. It was argued, that the new consecrations were void, because there was no notification, or that their claims were waived. Hickes pleads in answer the state of the times, and asks whether the want of notification is a waiving of claims, when such an act would involve the ruin of the party; and whether the notification to their Presbyters and laity, as there is occa-
- ↑ Constitution of the Catholic Church, &c. pp. 173, 205.
