From these facts, (and a collection much more ample could easily be made,) the reader will see who were the first puritans, and how very different the sentiments of the English reformers were from those of their successors. Those good men who had the direction of ecclesiastical affairs in the reign of Edward VI. thought it most prudent to proceed gradually and slowly, in removing the abuses, and correcting the evils, which had overspread the church; and to indulge the people for a season with those external forms to which they had been habituated, that they might draw them more easily from their superstitious notions and practices, and in due time perfect the reformation to the satisfaction of all. The plan was plausible; but its issue was very different from what was intended by those who proposed it. Nor was this unforeseen by persons who wished well to the church of England. After the bishops had resolved to rest satisfied with the establishment which they obtained, and felt themselves disturbed by the complaints of the puritans, (as they were afterwards called,) they endeavoured to engage the foreign divines on their side; and having, by partial representations, and through the respect entertained for the government of England, obtained letters from them somewhat favourable to their views, they employed these to bear down such as pleaded for a more pure reformation. Whitgift made great use of this weapon in his controversy with Cartwright. Bishop Parkhurst wrote to Gualter, a celebrated Swiss divine, cautioning him on this head, adding, that he had refused to communicate some of Gualter’s letters to Whitgift; because, “if any thing made for the ceremonies, 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.