friars from Switzerland, Italy, Poland, and Germany, clamoured for its
revision on the ground that it seemed to uphold the Real and Corporeal
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Cranmer, who had accepted
Transubstantiation in the days of Henry VIII., and had defended a kind
of Real Presence in 1549, veered gradually towards Calvin's teaching
on the Eucharist. In order to remove the ambiguities and difficulties
of the old Prayer Book, it was determined to subject it to a complete
revision by which everything that implied a real objective presence of
Christ in the Eucharist should be omitted. The second Book of Common
Prayer was submitted and approved by Parliament (1552), and its use
was authorised by royal proclamation. It was to come into force in
November 1552, but late in September, when some copies of the Book
were already printed, the council issued a command that the work
should be stopped until further corrections had been made. It seems
that by a new rubric inserted by Cranmer communicants were enjoined to
receive the communion on bended knees, and John Knox, who had arrived
lately in England and was high in the favour of the council, objected
strongly to such an injunction as flavouring of papistry.
Notwithstanding the spirited remonstrances of Cranmer, the council
without authority from Parliament or Convocation obliged him to insert
on a fly leaf the famous "Black Rubric" which remains in the Book of
Common Prayer till the present day, except that in the time of Charles
II. a change was made, by which "corporeal presence" was inserted in
place of the "real and essential presence" repudiated in the first
form of the rubric.[66]

One other matter was considered by Cranmer as necessary for the
success of the new religious settlement, namely, the publication of an
authoritative creed for the English Church. The great diversity of
opinion in the country, the frantic appeals of men like Hooper who had