Following several attempts to fashion a broad-based national church from the Church of England by reforming the Act of Uniformity (1662), the failed Comprehension Bill that accompanied the Toleration Act (1689) was the final such proposal tabled in Parliament. Although historians have examined moments when comprehension reappeared in eighteenth-century confessional discourse, less attention has been paid to connecting these moments within England's long Reformation and to explaining why the prospects for comprehension remained so dim. Its supporters claimed the Elizabethan via media in church and state to fashion a national church within a godly commonwealth by uniting Anglicans with “moderate” Dissenters. However, the High Church campaign against the practice of occasional conformity meant that comprehension ceased to be a viable political proposition by the time of the Tory landslide of 1710 and the passage of the Occasional Conformity Act (1711). The development of the culture of “free enquiry” among Dissenters further widened the gulf between them and the establishment, reinforcing the aspiration of the established church's Whig leaders for harmonious coexistence rather than unity. Despite its failure as a political proposition, Whig churchmen and moderate Dissenters continued to idealize comprehension due to their (albeit loosening) Hookerian commitment to unity in church and state.

在多次尝试通过改革统一法案（1662 年）从英格兰教会塑造一个基础广泛的国家教会之后，伴随着宽容法案（1689 年）的失败的理解法案是提交给议会的最终此类提案。尽管历史学家研究了 18 世纪忏悔话语中重新出现理解力的时刻，但很少有人关注将这些时刻与英格兰漫长的宗教改革联系起来，以及解释为什么理解力的前景如此黯淡。它的支持者通过媒体声称是伊丽莎白时代在教会和国家中，通过将英国国教徒与“温和的”持不同政见者联合起来，在一个虔诚的联邦内建立一个国家教会。然而，高等教会反对偶尔服从的做法意味着，到 1710 年保守党滑坡和通过偶尔服从法案（1711 年）时，理解不再是一个可行的政治主张。异见者之间“自由探究”文化的发展进一步扩大了他们与建制派之间的鸿沟，强化了建制派辉格党领袖对和谐共处而非团结的渴望。尽管它作为一个政治主张失败了，但辉格党教士和温和的持不同政见者继续将理解理想化，因为他们（尽管放松了）胡克对教会和国家统一的承诺。