he presently clapped it into his book and printed it.” Strype’s Annals, ii. 286, 287. But these divines had formerly delivered their unbiassed judgment, disapproving of such temporizing measures. Cranmer having signified to the Genevese Reformer, that he “could do nothing more profitable to the church, than to write often to the king,” Calvin wrote a letter to the archbishop in 1551, in which he {405} lamented the procrastination used, and expressed his fears, that “a long winter would succeed to so many harvests spent in deliberation.” Epist. p. 62: Oper. tom. ix. Strype’s Cranmer, p. 413. Peter Martyr, in June 1550, gave it as his opinion, that “the innumerable corruptions, infinite abuses, and immense superstition, could be reformed only by a simple recurrence to the pure fountain, and unadulterated original principles.” And the prudential advice, that as few changes as possible should be made, he called “a device of Satan, to render the regress to popery more easy.” Burnet, iii. Append, p. 200. Gualter, in a letter dated Jan. 16, 1559, says, that such advices, though “according to a carnal judgment full of modesty, and apparently conducive to the maintenance of concord,” were to be ascribed to “the public enemy of man’s salvation;” and he prophetically warns those who suffered abuses to remain and strengthen themselves in England, that “afterwards they would scarcely be able to eradicate them by all their efforts and struggles.” Ibid. iii. 273. Append, p. 265. Fuller says, that the English Reformers “permitted ignorant people to retain some fond customs, that they might remove the most dangerous and destructive superstitions; as mothers, to get children to part with _knives_, are content to let them play with _rattles_.” Very good: but if children are suffered to play too long with rattles, they are in great danger of not parting with them all their days. Note S, Footnote 160. _Plan of Edward VI. for advancing the Reformation of the Church of England._――A plan of improvements in the English church, which Edward VI. drew with his own hand, may be seen in Strype’s Memorials of the Reformation, ii. 341‒343. He was desirous of the establishment of ecclesiastical discipline, but sensible that the incumbent bishops were in general of such a description as to be unfit for its exercise. “Some for papistry,” says he, “some for ignorance, some for their ill‑name, some for all these, are men unable to execute discipline.” Accordingly, he adds, “as for discipline, I would wish no authority given generally to all {406} bishops; but that commission be given to those of the best sort of them to exercise it in their dioceses.” King Edward’s Remains: Burnet, ii. Records, p. 69.