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.
_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.
Omitting other proofs of his intentions, I shall produce the decisive one of his conduct towards the foreign churches settled in London under the inspection of John A Lasco. A Lasco was a Polish nobleman, who had forsaken his native country from love to the reformed religion. In his youth, he enjoyed the friendship of Erasmus, who, in one of his letters, passes a high encomium on him. “Senex, juvenis convictu, factus sum melior; ac sobrietatem, temperantiam, verecundiam, linguæ moderationem, modestiam, prudentiam, integritatem, quam juvenis a sene discere debuerat, a juvene senex didici.” Erasmi Epist. lib. 28, ep. 3. He was offered two bishoprics, one in his native country, and another in Hungary; but he rejected both, and retiring into Friesland, became pastor of a protestant congregation at Embden. Gerdes. Hist. Reform, iii. 145‒150. The protestant churches in the Low Countries being dissipated in consequence of the troubles produced by the _Interim_, he came to England at the pressing invitation of Cranmer, and was chosen superintendent of the German, French, and Italian congregations erected in London, which consisted of between 3000 and 4000 persons. Strype’s Cranmer, p. 234‒241. Gerdes. ut sup. p. 150, 235.