"Despite these views it is doubtful that the rank and file of the New Model Army were as deeply imbued with religious ideas as the chaplains contended. Two cogent arguments to this effect may be cited: the use of impressment in addition to voluntary enlistment, and the plundering of churches. The second argument is not unanswerable; the desecration of churches as was actually defended by chaplain Robert Ram as being essentially an expression of intolerance toward Anglicanism- i.e., toward superstition and idolatry- growing out of an ardent desire for more simplified ecclesiastical forms. The impressment argument is much stronger. Five Parliamentary ordinances from February to June, 1645, dealt with the impressment of men for the Parliamentary forces. On 12 May the Venetian ambassador commented that the violence and force used by Parliament to compel men to serve in the Army was "cooling off" the favor of the common people. Peters, while making no claims for their religiosity, noted how serviceable the worst of the impressed men had been under the example of the other soldiers. General Fairfax observed that good soldiers had come out of the King's Army after the surrender of the Royalist garrisons. Good impressed soldiers, although not by definition irreligious, could hardly have been inspired by the same religious zeal, at least to begin with, which had prompted others to volunteer."