It was a pamphleteering age; and religion as well as politics fell under discussion in numerous small publications. Some one published in the beginning of August, 1667, under the name of "A Lover of Sincerity and Peace," _A Proposition for the Safety and Happiness of the King and Kingdom, both in Church and State_, a work in which the writer advocated comprehension and toleration. In the middle of the month of October there followed a reply, from the pen of a Mr. Tomkyns, one of Archbishop Sheldon's chaplains. The same month another pamphlet appeared anonymously, under the title of _A Discourse of the Religion of England_, maintaining that Reformed Christianity, settled in its due latitude, secures the stability and advancement of the kingdom, of which the author is known to have been John Corbet, an ejected minister, who lived privately in London, after the passing of the Bartholomew Act.[533] Corbet was answered by Dr. Perinchief, Prebendary of Westminster, whereupon Corbet replied, and Perinchief put in a rejoinder. From August to November the printers and the public seem to have been busy in producing and reading these controversial tracts. [Sidenote: COMPREHENSION.] Whether or not this circumstance arose from a knowledge of what was going on in upper circles, it is certain that, now Clarendon had gone, Sir Robert Atkins--who afterwards became one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, and ultimately Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer,--prepared a Bill of Comprehension. This healing measure, Colonel Birch, member for Penryn, undertook to introduce in the House of Commons;[534] and a careful account of it, written by Bishop Barlow, is preserved at Oxford in the Bodleian Library,[535] from which document we derive our information. The Bill provided that ordained ministers--whether Episcopal or Presbyterian--who should within the next three months subscribe to all the Articles of Religion "which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments" should be capable of preaching in any church or chapel in England, of administering the sacraments according to the Book of Common Prayer, of taking upon them the cure of souls, and of enjoying any spiritual promotion. After prescribing that the Common Prayer, according to law, should be read before sermon, there follows a proviso, that no one should be denied the Lord's Supper, although he did not kneel in the act of receiving it; and that no minister should be compelled to wear the surplice, or use the cross in baptism. The authors of the project, in addition to clauses touching Presbyterian ordination and ceremonies, wished to have the word "consent" left out of the form of subscription,--to confine subscription to the doctrine of the Christian faith,--not to bind ministers to read the Common Prayer themselves, if they procured others to do it,--and to lay aside the Oath of Adjuration. [Sidenote: 1667.] [Sidenote: COMPREHENSION.]