To prepare the way for convocation a royal commission was issued, authorising certain individuals to meet and propose alterations in the Liturgy and Canons, and to consider other matters connected with the Church. The commissioners thus appointed were Lamplugh, Compton, Mew, Lloyd, Sprat, Smith, Trelawney, Burnet, Humphreys, Stratford, all bishops at the time; also Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tillotson, Sharp, Hall, Beveridge, Tennison, Fowler, Grove, and Williams, who were subsequently raised to the Episcopal bench; and likewise Meggot, Kidder, Aldridge, Jane, Beaumont, Montague, Goodman, Battely, Alston, and Scott, who, though distinguished men, never attained to prelatical honours. The commissioners frequently met, but some of the members absented themselves, especially Dr Jane, the Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford, on the ground that alterations were not required, and that the present was not the season for such discussions. Burnet says, “We had before us all the books and papers that the Nonconformists had at any time offered, setting forth their demands, together with many advices and propositions which had been made at several times by most of the best and most learned of our divines; and so we prepared a scheme to be laid before convocation.” The following are some of the alterations that were proposed:—Chanting to be discontinued. Apochryphal lessons to be left out of the calendar. The sign of the cross in baptism to be omitted when desired. The sacramental elements to be administered in pews to those who might object to kneeling. The absolution to be read by deacons. The _Gloria Patri_ not to be repeated at the end of every psalm. In the _Te Deum_ the words only-begotten Son to be substituted for _thine honourable, true, and only Son_. All titles of the king and queen to be omitted, and the word “sovereign” only used. The Collects to be revised by Patrick. Sponsors to be disused if desired. The great festivals, as a rule, to be retained; but it was not thought desirable that St Valentine, St Chad, St Swithin, St Dunstan, and St Alphage, should share the honours of St John and St Paul. The Athanasian creed to be kept in the Prayer-Book, but Stillingfleet was to draw up a rubric, declaring that the damnatory clauses were to be understood to apply only to such as obstinately denied the substance of the Christian faith. The point of greatest difficulty was that of _re-ordination_; but it was at last agreed that the hypothetical _form_ should be adopted in the case of Dissenters, as in the case of uncertain baptism, in these words “_If thou art not already ordained, I ordain thee_.” Such were some of the alterations proposed by the commissioners.[83] It mattered little, however, whether the recommendations of the commissioners were good or bad. They were all doomed before they were published; for the clergy were all smarting from being recently compelled to take the oaths, and were resolved to defeat