III. The House, on the 25th of June, appointed a Committee to report, how far the coercive power of Ecclesiastical Courts had been taken away, and to prepare a Bill for their restoration. The Bill provided that, although the High Commission had been abolished, Archbishops, Bishops, and other persons exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, should have their power restored as before, two provisions being subjoined--one forbidding the use of the _ex officio_ oath, and another preserving the Royal Supremacy from abridgment. This Bill involved the further re-establishment of Episcopalianism. It does not appear that any debate was raised on that ground. The Bill passed, as if a matter of course; and together with the Bill, reinstating the Bishops, received the Royal assent before the end of July.[263] Thus within a few weeks, three measures were introduced, and two of them were carried, tending to repress Dissent and consolidate the Episcopalian Church. The fourth measure, which was central in point of importance, remains to be considered. Its origin and progress must be patiently followed. [Sidenote: PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT.] IV. Whilst many of the Episcopalian party assumed the existence of a legal obligation to use the Common Prayer, some Nonconformists adopted this curious line of argument: "That the Common Prayer Book, 5th and 6th of Edward VI., with some alterations made 1st of Elizabeth, was so established we know, but what that book was, or where it is, we cannot tell; it is apparent that the books ordinarily walking up and down are not so established."[264] It would seem as if this odd kind of objection secured some respect; for the first step towards a settlement of the question of worship is found in a resolution, by the House of Commons, that a Committee of all the members, who were of the Long Robe,[265] should view the several laws for confirming the Liturgy of the Church of England, and make search, whether the original Book of the Liturgy, annexed to the Act passed in the fifth and sixth years of the reign of King Edward VI., was still extant; they were also "to bring in a compendious Bill to supply any defect in the former laws, and to provide for an effectual conformity to the Liturgy of the Church for the time to come."