Following the example of the Long Parliament, the House now resolved to exclude spiritual persons from secular authority. To all public ministers of religion was applied the principle which had swept the bishops out of the House of Lords. It was determined that the Act of 1642, for disabling persons in holy orders to exercise temporal jurisdiction, should be in force, so as to prevent all public ministers and preachers of the Gospel from serving in Parliament.[93] The Presbyterians wished to limit the toleration prescribed in the Articles of 1653. The matter was found more difficult than any which had been previously propounded for consideration. Accordingly, a sub-committee was appointed to wait upon the Lord Protector, and to advise with him about some probable means of reconcilement. The Committee found no favour in the eyes of his Highness. He evidently had no wish to see the liberty of his subjects circumscribed by minute specifications of doctrines. He told the members he was wholly dissatisfied with what they were about--that he had no "propensity" to it--that the Parliament had already taken the instrument of Government to pieces, and had made alterations without his advice--and it did not become him to counsel them in this particular, apart from the other articles contained in the instrument.[94] Yet certain Divines were appointed to explain what was meant by the words "such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ." [Sidenote: 1654, November.] Baxter, who was one of this Committee,[95] lets us into the secret of its proceedings, by saying that he wished the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments to be the only "fundamentals" specified; and that the objection made to his proposal was, that Socinians and Papists would be thereby brought within the boundaries of toleration. To which he acutely replied, that it was impossible to devise any form of words which heretics would not subscribe, when they explained those words in their own sense.[96] The majority of the Committee took a different view; and--as Baxter informs us--Owen, Goodwin, Nye, Simpson, Cheynell, and Marshall, were the most active in framing the principles which at length were submitted to the House, to help them in laying down lines of liberty. [Sidenote: _Limits of Toleration._] They were expressed in the following terms: "_First._ That the Holy Scripture is that rule of knowing God, and living unto Him, which whoso does not believe cannot be saved. "_Secondly._ That there is a God, who is the Creator, Governor, and Judge of the world, which is to be received by faith, and every other way of the knowledge of Him is insufficient. "_Thirdly._ That this God, who is the Creator, is eternally distinct from all creatures in His being and blessedness. "_Fourthly._ That this God is one in three persons or subsistences. "_Fifthly._ That Jesus Christ is the only Mediator between God and man, without the knowledge of whom there is no salvation.