maypoles, which they called a heathenish vanity. Since we are upon this subject, it may not be amiss to mention that, besides setting apart Sunday for the ordinances, as they called them, the godly had regular meetings on the Thursdays, for resolving cases of conscience, and conferring about their progress in grace. What they were chiefly anxious about, was the fixing the precise moment of their conversion or new birth; and whoever could not ascertain so difficult a point of calculation, could not pretend to any title to saintship. The profane scholars at Oxford, after the parliament became masters of that town, gave to the house in which the zealots assembled the denomination of Sernple Shop: the zealots, in their turn, insulted the scholars and professors; and, intruding into the place of lectures, declaimed against human learning, and challenged the most knowing of them to prove that their calling was from Christ. See Wood's Fasti Oxonienses, p. 740. Had Charles been of a disposition to neglect all theological controversy, he yet had been obliged, in good policy, to adhere to episcopal jurisdiction; not only because it was favorable to monarchy, but because all its adherents were passionately devoted to it; and to abandon them, in what they regarded as so important an article, was forever to relinquish their friendship and assistance. But Charles had never attained such enlarged principles. He deemed bishops essential to the very being of a Christian church; and he thought himself bound, by more sacred ties than those of policy, or even of honor, to the support of that order. His concessions, therefore, on this head, he judged sufficient, when he agreed that an indulgence should be given to tender consciences with regard to ceremonies; that the bishops should exercise no act of jurisdiction or ordination without the consent and counsel of such presbyters as should be chosen by the clergy of each diocese; that they should reside constantly in their diocese, and be bound to preach every Sunday; that pluralities be abolished; that abuses in ecclesiastical courts be redressed; and that a hundred thousand pounds be levied on the bishops' estates and the chapter lands, for payment of debts contracted by the parliament.[*] * Dugdale, p. 779, 780. These concessions, though considerable gave no satisfaction to the parliamentary commissioners; and, without abating any thing of their rigor on this head, they proceeded to their demands with regard to the militia.