For a list of the London clergy ejected see Appendix II. In June 1643 a council or company of one hundred and twenty divines, called “Pious, godly, and judicious,” was summoned to meet at Westminster to consider the new form of national church. With them were joined thirty laymen, namely, ten Lords and twenty Commoners. The Houses laid down rules for the form of the meetings and the subject of the debates. Among the hundred and twenty was a certain proportion of Episcopalians, who, however, refused to attend; the majority were Presbyterians, anxious to establish the discipline and doctrine of the foreign reformed churches; but there was also among them a small body of Independents. The difference between the two parties was very important. The former desired a church resembling that of the old Established Church in a gradation of spiritual authorities in presbyteries, classes, synods, and assemblies, giving to these bodies the power of censure, punishment, deprivation, and excommunication. The latter held that every congregation stood by itself, that there should be no central authority, and that churches should be left free to differ in doctrine. The Council were unanimous in minor points; they removed organs; they prohibited the surplice and the cope; they destroyed monuments of idolatry, but they could not agree as to church government. Finally, they agreed in the production of a Directory of public worship, which introduced order into the service and regulated the administration of the sacraments, the ceremony of marriage, the visitation of the sick, and the burial of the dead. On Friday, January 3, 1645, the Ordinance for the abolition of the Book of Common Prayer, and for the establishment in its place of a new Directory for the public worship of God, was passed:— “In the Preamble it is set forth that the ‘Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, taking into serious consideration the manifold inconveniences that have arisen by the Book of Common-Prayer in this Kingdome, and resolving according to their Covenant to reforme Religion according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches, have consulted with the Reverend, Pious and Learned Divines, called together to that purpose; And doe Judge it necessary that the said Book of Common-Prayer be abolished, and the Directory for the Publike Worship of God herein after mentioned, bee established and observed in all the Churches within this Kingdome.” “And that the Directory for publike Worship herein set forth shall bee henceforth used, perused, and observed according to the true intent and meaning of this Ordinance, in all Exercises of the Publike Worship of God, in every Congregation, Church, Chappell, and place of Publike Worship within this Kingdome of England, and Dominion of Wales; Which Directory for the Publike Worship of God, with the Preface thereof followeth” (_The Directory_, p. 4).