Then it was provided that any minister who had been ordained
after the Presbyterian fashion might, without reordination,
acquire all the privileges of a priest of the Established Church.
He must, however, be admitted to his new functions by the
imposition of the hands of a bishop, who was to pronounce the
following form of words; "Take thou authority to preach the word
of God, and administer the sacraments, and to perform all other
ministerial offices in the Church of England." The person thus
admitted was to be capable of holding any rectory or vicarage in
the kingdom.

Then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might, except in
a few churches of peculiar dignity, wear the surplice or not as
he thought fit, that the sign of the cross might be omitted in
baptism, that children might be christened, if such were the wish
of their parents, without godfathers or godmothers, and that
persons who had a scruple about receiving the Eucharist kneeling
might receive it sitting.

The concluding clause was drawn in the form of a petition. It was
proposed that the two Houses should request the King and Queen to
issue a commission empowering thirty divines of the Established
Church to revise the liturgy, the canons, and the constitution of
the ecclesiastical courts, and to recommend such alterations as
might on inquiry appear to be desirable.

The bill went smoothly through the first stages. Compton, who,
since Sancroft had shut himself up at Lambeth, was virtually
Primate, supported Nottingham with ardour.87 In the committee,
however, it appeared that there was a strong body of churchmen,