Sacerdotalism certainly attained a formidable height among some of the High Churchmen of the period, both Jurors and Nonjurors.  Dodwell, who declined orders that he might defend all priestly rights from a better vantage ground, did more harm to the cause he had espoused than any one of its opponents, by fearlessly pressing the theory into consequences from which a less thorough or a more cautious advocate would have recoiled with dismay.  Robert Nelson’s sobriety of judgment and sound practical sense made him a far more effective champion.  He too, like Dodwell, rejoiced that from his position as a layman he could without prejudice resist what he termed a sacrilegious invasion of the rights of the priests of the Lord.[145] The beginning of the eighteenth century was felt to be a time of crisis in the contest which, for the last three or four hundred years, has been incessantly waged between those whose tendency is ever to reduce religion into its very simplest elements, and those, on the other hand, in whose eyes the whole order of Church government and discipline is a divinely constituted system of mysterious powers and superhuman influences.  It is a contest in which opinions may vary in all degrees, from pure Deism to utter Ultramontanism.  The High Churchmen in question insisted that their position, and theirs only, was precisely that of the Church in early post-Apostolic times, when doctrine had become fully defined, but was as yet uncorrupted by later superstitions.  It was not very tenable ground, but it was held by them with a pertinacity and sincerity of conviction which deepened the fervour of their faith, even while it narrowed its sympathies and cramped it with restrictions.  A Church in which they found what they demanded; which was primitive and reformed; which was free from the errors of Rome and Geneva; which was not only Catholic and orthodox on all doctrines of faith, but possessed an apostolical succession, with the sacred privileges attached to it; which was governed by a lawful and canonical episcopate; which was blessed with a sound and ancient liturgy; which was faithful (many Nonjurors would add) to its divinely appointed king; such a Church was indeed one for which they could live and die.  So far it was well.  Their love for their own Church, and their perfect confidence in it, added both beauty and character to their piety.  The misfortune was, that it left them unable to understand the merits of any form of faith which rejected, or treated as a thing indifferent, what they regarded as all but essential.

Fervid as their Christianity was, it was altogether unprogressive in its form.  It was inelastic, incompetent to adapt itself to changing circumstances.  Some of their leaders were inclined at one time to favour a scheme of comprehension.  It is, however, impossible to believe they would have agreed to any concession which was not evidently superficial.  They longed indeed for unity; and there is no reason to believe that they would have hesitated to sacrifice,