When all had come back from celebrating the Easter festival, and the Prolocutor appeared before the Upper House with a paper in his hand, the Primate returned to the old charge of irregularity, and told him he could not recognize any of the proceedings carried on since his adjournment. The Prolocutor replied, that he had been commanded by the Lower House to bring up the paper, and did therefore present it, as an Act of the House. After being laid upon their Lordships’ table, the paper was found to contain arguments against the course pursued by them in reference to Toland’s work. The Bishops now proposed that committees from the two Houses should meet, with a view to an amicable arrangement, but the majority of the Lower House refused to nominate any committee for the purpose; a refusal which exceedingly annoyed several members. The majority determined to ride the high horse, and to dig the spur into its flanks; so when the schedule of adjournment next time came down, the Prolocutor refused to notice it at all, and adjourned on his own authority; an act against which Beveridge, Sherlock, and others protested, in a paper which they signed and presented to the Archbishop. What still more annoyed the Upper House, was that the Clergy, under the Prolocutor’s presidency, agreed upon a censure of a book by one of the Prelates. This was _The Exposition of the XXXIX Articles_, by Bishop Burnet, in which, with learning, moderation, and good temper, he expounded the doctrines of the Church of England according to his idea, treating the Articles as terms of peace and union, intended to receive a considerable latitude of interpretation. Anything but unanimity and decorum of behaviour marked the proceedings of the Lower Assembly at this moment; and a report went abroad that one of the members, in consequence of a speech he delivered, ran the risk of having his gown torn off his back. The report is an exaggeration; it arose out of the conduct of some one who, by rudely twitching the dress of a speaker, put an end to his unpleasant oration. Words uttered within the Abbey walls were reported outside in garbled forms, which led to explanations and counter-explanations, to assertions and denials, which provoked fresh controversy, and it became a difficult thing to determine what exactly the two parties up in arms did and said. Enough, however, was manifest to prove, that many of the ministers of religion, assembled to promote the prosperity of Christ’s Church, were sadly forgetful of the simplest lessons of the Gospel. [Sidenote: 1701.] [Sidenote: CONVOCATION.]