Notwithstanding this admonition, and the addresses of both houses, in which they promised to avoid all divisions, a motion was made in the house of commons for renewing the bill against occasional conformity, and carried by a great majority.

In the new draft, however, the penalties were lowered and the severest clauses mitigated.

As the court no longer interested itself in the success of this measure, the house was pretty equally divided with respect to the speakers, and the debates on each side were maintained with equal spirit and ability; at length it passed, and was sent up to the lords, who handled it still more severely.

It was opposed by a small majority of the bishops, and particularly by Burnet of Sarum, who declaimed against it as a scheme of the papists to set the church and protestants at variance.

It was successively attacked by the duke of Devonshire, the earl of Pembroke, the lords Haversham, Mohun, Ferrars, and Wharton.
Prince George of Denmark absented himself from the house; and the question being put for a second reading, it was carried in the negative; yet the duke of Marlborough and lord Godolphin entered their dissent against its being rejected, although the former had positively declared that he thought the bill unseasonable.