Cranmer and his colleagues were far from being satisfied with the purity of the last common‑prayer book of Edward; and the primate had drawn up one which is said to have been “an hundred times more perfect.” Troubles at Franckfort, p. 50. He and Ridley intended to procure an act for abolishing the sacerdotal habits; “for they only defended their lawfulness, but not their fitness.” Burnet’s Letters respecting Switzerland, &c. p. 52. Rotterdam, 1686. When Grindal was appointed to the bishopric of London, he “remained under some scruples of conscience about some things, especially the habits and certain ceremonies required to be used of such as were bishops. For the reformed in these times (says Strype) generally went upon the ground, that, in order to the complete freeing of the church of Christ from the errors and corruptions of Rome, every usage and custom practised by that apostate and idolatrous church should be abolished,――and that the service of God should be most simple, stript of all that show, pomp, and appearance that had been customarily used before, esteeming all that to be no better than superstitious and anti‑christian.” Life of Grindal, p. 28. Horn and others had the same views and scruples. “By the letters,” says Bishop Burnet, “of which I read the originals, [in the archives of Zurich,] it appears that the bishops preserved the habits rather in compliance with the queen’s inclinations than out of any liking they had to them; so far {403} were they from liking, that they plainly expressed their dislike of them.” Burnet’s Letters, ut supra, p. 51. Before they accepted the office, they endeavoured to obtain the abrogation of the ceremonies; and when the act enjoining them passed, they were induced to comply chiefly by their fears that Papists or Lutherans would be put into their places. Strype’s Annals, i. 175, Burnet, ii. 376, and his Sermon on Psal. cxlv. 15, preached before the House of Commons, Jan. 1688. Cox writes to Bullinger, 5th May 1551, “I think all things in the church ought to be pure and simple, removed at the greatest distance from the pomps and elements of the world. But in this our church what can I do in so low a station?” Strype’s Memor. of the Reform. ii. 305. Burnet, iii. 202. Jewel, in a letter to Martyr, Nov. 5, 1559, calls the clerical habits “a stage‑dress” (_vestis scenica_), to which those alone were attached who “had nothing else to recommend them to the people, but _a comical dress_,”――“stipites sine ingenio, sine doctrina, sine moribus, veste saltem comica volebant populo commendari.” He engages that no exertions of his should be wanting to banish utterly these _ridiculous trifles_, “ludicris ineptiis,” and _relics of the Amorites_, as his correspondent (he says) had well designed them. And, at a period still later, (Feb. 8, 1566), he writes to Bullinger, that he “wished that the very slightest footsteps of popery might be removed out of the