By that act it was provided, that “every parson, vicar, or other minister whatsoever, now enjoying any ecclesiastical benefice or promotion, within this realm of England,” who neglected or refused to declare publicly, before his congregation, his “unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things contained and prescribed” in the Book of Common Prayer, on some Lord’s-day before the feast of St Bartholomew, in 1662, should be deprived of all his spiritual promotions; and that, henceforth, it should be lawful for all patrons and donors of such church livings to present others to the same, as though the person or persons so offending or neglecting were dead. The act further provided, that all deans, canons, and prebendaries; also all heads, fellows, and tutors of colleges; and likewise all schoolmasters, keeping any public or private schools, should, before the same feast of St Bartholomew, subscribe a declaration to the effect that they would conform to the liturgy of the Church of England, as now by law established; and that they renounced all obligation from the oath commonly called “The Solemn League and Covenant,” and regarded it as an unlawful oath, contrary to the laws and liberties of the kingdom. It likewise enacted that all the church functionaries above-mentioned who refused to subscribe to this declaration were to be deprived of their promotions; and all schoolmasters who refused were to suffer three months’ imprisonment. It also provided that if any minister, not being a foreigner, who was not episcopally ordained, should presume to administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper after St Bartholomew’s day, he should, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of £100; and if he presumed to lecture or preach in any church, chapel, or other place of worship whatever, within the realm of England, he should suffer three months’ imprisonment in the common gaol. And another, though minor provision was, that the parishioners of every parish church, at their own cost, should provide for such church, before the feast of St Bartholomew, a true printed copy of the revised Book of Common Prayer; and that they should be fined £3 for every month, after St Bartholomew’s, that they neglected to obey such a mandate.