Objectively, the conditions upon which Monck allowed the secluded members to resume their seats appeared to be irreconcilable, for it was universally understood that any representative assembly other than the rump would wish for a return to monarchy. The majority of the members of the restored parliament had no desire to preserve the commonwealth, but they had no real power of decision. Their predicament had two aspects:first, the limits of possibility were still defined by the potential use of force and they were constrained by the uncertainty that surrounded Monck's intentions; second, they could not be confident that the body that they had agreed to summon would share their sense of the need to ensure that the king was restored on terms that protected the gains of the civil war. In parliament, in a probing collaboration with Monck, they did what they could to further a restoration and to prescribe the conditions upon which it should take place. The most promising area of cooperation was in religion, where Monck's condition accorded with their desires. Rapidly, they put together a religious settlement based upon two elements: the adoption of the confession of faith which had been drawn up by the Westminster Assembly in 1646, but never approved by parliament, and the reimposition of the Presbyterian form of church government nominally introduced in both England and Ireland by an act passed in August 1648.