Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

have stopped, so far as man can judge. After Henry
went to the grave, and the young and reforming
Edward succeeded him on the throne, the Popish
faction was still powerful, and Cranmer had to pilot
the movement through a host of enemies, through
numberless intrigues, and through all the
hindrances arising from the ignorance and
godlessness which the old system had left behind
it, and the storms of new and strange opinions
which its overthrow had evoked. That he effected
so much is truly wonderful, nor can England ever
be sufficiently thankful for the work he
accomplished for her; but Cranmer himself did not
regard his work as finished, and had Edward VI
lived, it is probable that many things in the worship
of the Church, borrowed from the ancient
superstition, would have been removed, and that
some things in her government would have
undergone a remodeling in accordance with what
Cranmer and the men associated with him in the
work of reformation believed to be the primitive
institution. "As far as can be judged from
Cranmer's proceedings," says Burnet, he intended
to put the government of the Church in another
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