Some desire for a conference of Divines manifested itself immediately after the opening of the Long Parliament. Baillie had scarcely reached London, on his first mission, in 1640, when he began to speak of an Assembly in England, which was to be called together to perfect the work of reform; though, with characteristic wariness, the Scotch Commissioner said that such an Assembly "at this time would spoil all," because the clergy were so "very corrupt."[335] Dering, in the debates of October, 1641, as we have seen, recommended a synod of grave Divines; and the same measure was sanctioned by the grand Remonstrance in the winter of the same year. The Puritan clergy also, in a petition presented on the 20th of December, intreated that the consideration of ecclesiastical matters might be entrusted to a free synod, differing in constitution from the Convocation of the clergy.[336] Other proofs of the prevailing wish might be adduced. At length, on the 15th of October, 1642, a Bill was introduced into Parliament for the purpose so much desired; and on its passing through a committee of the Commons two significant resolutions were adopted; first, that the vote against Bishops should be appended to the Bill; and secondly, that the Parliament did not intend wholly to abrogate the Prayer Book. These additions indicated the existence of an anti-episcopal spirit, together with a lingering love for the ancient liturgy. Revolutionary ideas were still kept in check by conservative instincts, and whilst the tide of change was at the flood, sweeping the Church forward to a new position, the legislators were not prepared to let it drift away entirely from its ancient moorings. For want of the royal assent, this Bill for an assembly, after having passed both Houses, was, constitutionally considered, a dead letter. So, to remedy as far as possible the defect--the country having reached the crisis of a revolution, and the King's concurrence in the measure being hopeless--Parliament, convinced of its urgent importance, boldly issued an ordinance, bearing date the 12th of June, 1643, commanding that an Assembly of Divines should be convened at Westminster on the 1st of July following. The document recognized the Church of England as still undestroyed, by alluding to "many things in its liturgy, discipline, and government requiring further and more perfect reformation." The theory of proceeding was not to overturn and ruin one establishment first and then to create and fashion another, but only to alter that which continued in existence; yet the resolution to abolish prelatical government as soon as possible, being cited in the ordinance, that instrument, though it did not in itself go so far as formally to extinguish episcopal rule, left no doubt of a foregone conclusion in the mind of the legislators that an end must be put to the ancient hierarchy. Ecclesiastical government was to be settled so as to be most agreeable to God's Word, and most