Ten Commandments in the 1928 BCP Catechism
Ten Commandments in the 1928 BCP Catechism are taught as part of the baptismal life of faith, obedience, and prayer. The Catechism asks candidates for Confirmation to learn the commandments, to understand their duty to God and neighbour, and to seek the grace needed to keep them.
From baptismal promise to the law
The Catechism places the commandments after the Apostles' Creed. The candidate first recalls that the baptismal sponsors promised renunciation, Christian belief, and obedience; the third promise is:
that I should keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life.
The candidate answers that this obligation is to be fulfilled “by God's help,” and thanks God for the state of salvation through Jesus Christ. Obedience therefore appears within a baptismal account of divine calling and grace, not as an isolated condition for earning admission to the Church.
When asked which commandments are meant, the answer introduces them with Israel's deliverance:
The same which God spake in the twentieth Chapter of Exodus, saying, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Exodus 20:1–17 sets the commands in the story of God's deliverance of Israel. The Catechism repeats all ten, from the prohibition of other gods and idolatry through the prohibition of coveting. Their ordering addresses worship, speech, time, family, life, sexual conduct, possessions, truth, and desire. The final command makes the learner consider inward desire as well as outward action.
Love of God and neighbour
The Catechism asks what is chiefly learned from the commandments and answers, “my duty towards God, and my duty towards my Neighbour.” Its account of the first duty is positive as well as prohibitive:
My duty towards God is To believe in him, to fear him, And to love him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength: To worship him, to give him thanks: To put my whole trust in him, to call upon him: To honour his holy Name and his Word: And to serve him truly all the days of my life.
The corresponding answer on neighbour begins with love and reciprocity, then applies them to family, public authority, conduct, speech, self-control, coveting, and work:
My duty towards my Neighbour is To love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the civil authority: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt nobody by word or deed: To be true and just in all my dealings: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: [...]
The language of social rank reflects the inherited wording of the Catechism. Its duties of truth, care, and protection from harm should also be heard alongside the love of neighbour that frames the answer. In Matthew 22:37–40 and Mark 12:28–34 Jesus joins the love of God to love of neighbour; the Catechism uses the same twofold framework to explain what the commandments require.
Grace and prayer
After the moral instruction, the Catechist immediately tells the learner:
My good Child, know this; that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace; which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer.
The Lord's Prayer follows this instruction. The sequence teaches that God's commands call for actual obedience, while the ability to serve God is sought as a gift. Its petitions for forgiveness and deliverance also give the learner words with which to return to God when obedience fails.
Preparation and worship
The Catechism's concluding rubric joins learning the commandments with learning the Creed and the Lord's Prayer before presentation to the bishop:
So soon as Children are come to a competent age, and can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and can answer to the other questions of this short Catechism, they shall be brought to the Bishop.
Writing more than a century before the 1928 revision, Bishop John Henry Hobart interpreted the comparable catechetical requirement as a call to understanding:
By this order, she evidently designs more than that they should be able merely to say the words of the Catechism. They must have a full knowledge of its meaning.
Hobart's interpretation encourages catechists to ask how the commandments shape conduct rather than treating recitation as the whole of preparation. In another nineteenth-century confirmation manual, James DeKoven connects repentance with repair of harm:
Q. What is restitution? A. Making amends and restoration for every thing in which we have done wrong to our neighbours.
DeKoven's example gives practical content to the Catechism's duty to be true and just. Both authors are witnesses to earlier Anglican teaching, rather than explanations issued with the 1928 text itself.
The same instruction is reinforced in Holy Communion. The 1928 rite directs the Decalogue to be said at least one Sunday each month; when it is omitted the Summary of the Law is required. After the commandments the people pray for mercy and grace, ending:
Lord, have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.
Thus instruction and worship meet: the law is learned, examined, and prayed, while the congregation asks God to write it on the heart (compare Jeremiah 31:33).
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- Catechism (1928 BCP)
- Offices of Instruction (1928 BCP)
- Confirmation (1928 BCP)
- Decalogue in Holy Communion
External Links
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), A Catechism, question on the sponsors' promises, transcription at the Society of Archbishop Justus.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), A Catechism, introduction to the Ten Commandments, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), A Catechism, “What is thy duty towards God?”, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), A Catechism, opening of “What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour?”, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. The quotation ends before the rest of the answer.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), A Catechism, introduction to the Lord's Prayer, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. The transcription's line-break hyphen in “Commandments” is silently removed.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), A Catechism, rubric on presentation to the bishop, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
- ↑ John Henry Hobart, A Catechism for Confirmation (New York: Protestant Episcopal Tract Society, printed by T. & J. Swords, 1819), p. 9, Project Canterbury transcription.
- ↑ James DeKoven, “A Catechism on Confirmation,” in Morgan Dix, ed., A Manual of Instruction for Confirmation Classes (New York: E. & J. B. Young, 1867), section I, “The Christian Life,” Project Canterbury transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), Holy Communion, response after the tenth commandment, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.