REIGN OF EDWARD VI
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justify the breach of the unity, and the consequent revolt against the unique authority of the one universal Church, much more could similar considerations justify an assault upon some of those practical abuses which the best and noblest of her sons could not deny to exist within her, and which they had endured only because her own authority alone stood high enough to initiate a reform. The breach once made was as the let ting-out of water, and Henry it was who made it; and though his authority and determination proved sufficient to limit it for the moment, yet even his powers of repression would, in all likelihood, have failed had they been tried much longer,
