Yet many of those clergymen to whom Burnet was an object of implacable aversion spoke of Tillotson with tenderness and respect.
It is therefore not strange that the two friends should have formed different estimates of the temper of the priesthood, and should have expected different results from the meeting of the Convocation.
Tillotson was not displeased with the vote of the Commons.

He conceived that changes made in religious institutions by mere secular authority might disgust many churchmen, who would yet be perfectly willing to vote, in an ecclesiastical synod, for changes more extensive still; and his opinion had great weight with the King, [483] It was resolved that the Convocation should meet at the beginning of the next session of Parliament, and that in the meantime a commission should issue empowering some eminent divines to examine the Liturgy, the canons, and the whole system of jurisprudence administered by the Courts Christian, and to report on the alterations which it might be desirable to make, [484] Most of the Bishops who had taken the oaths were in this commission; and with them were joined twenty priests of great note.

Of the twenty Tillotson was the most important: for he was known to speak the sense both of the King and of the Queen.

Among those Commissioners who looked up to Tillotson as their chief were Stillingfleet, Dean of Saint Paul's, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Tenison, Rector of Saint Martin's, and Fowler, to whose judicious firmness was chiefly to be ascribed the determination of the London clergy not to read the Declaration of Indulgence.
With such men as those who have been named were mingled some divines who belonged to the High Church party.

Conspicuous among these were two of the rulers of Oxford, Aldrich and Jane.