A conference followed on the 3rd of June, when the peers were as decided as the Commons. They contended that there could be no question of the bishops' right to sit in Parliament, as well by common and statute law as by constant practice; and they further declared, that they knew of no inconveniences attending the privilege; still, if there were any, they were ready to consider them.[195] In reply the Commons alleged, that intermeddling with secular business hindered the exercise of ministerial functions, and that bishops should devote themselves entirely to their spiritual vocation. They added, that councils and canons forbid their engaging in secular affairs--that the twenty-four bishops are dependent on two archbishops--that with a peerage only for life, they are ever hoping for translation--that of late several prelates had encroached on the liberty of conscience belonging to His Majesty's subjects, and would still do so--and that they were pledged in their parliamentary character to maintain a jurisdiction grievous to the three kingdoms, and already abolished in Scotland, while it was petitioned against both in England and Wales. Finally, the Commons urged that rank as peers placed the prelates at too great a distance from the rest of the clergy. The arguments of neither House satisfied the other. The Commons could not accept the answer of the Lords. We will, declared they, have the whole Bill or none. Then, replied the Lords, you shall have none; and threw it out altogether. A wedge had before entered the oak of the English constitution. This blow split the two branches asunder, and they stood apart wider than before. [Sidenote: 1641, June.] The Commons went on their way, and framed a piece of Sabbath legislation, by prohibiting bargemen and lightermen from using their barks on the day of rest. Further, they separated ancient usages from parish perambulations, by requiring that no service should be said, nor any psalms sung when such perambulations took place. And then--perhaps to cover the measure against the bishops with some show of zeal for clerical order--the House reproved some poor people brought before them for schismatical irregularities.[196] [Sidenote: _Debates by the Commons._]