/ ^ .^^i^^^C ^./' 
 
 ARE 
 
 I ARE 
 
 ^ o THE APOSTLES' CREED, 
 
 LORD'S PRAYER, 
 AND TEN COMMANDMENTS, 
 
 DISSEVERED FROM 
 THE REST OF THE CHURCH CATECHISM, 
 
 AN AUTHORITATIVE SCHEME 
 
 OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION 
 FOR THE YOUNG IN SCHOOLS, 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH 
 OF ENGLAND t 
 
 " Hold fast the form of sound words." — (II. Tim. i. 13.) 
 
 " Pietatis doctiina, quanta fieri potest sinceritate, pueris, qui sunt lleipublicEe 
 
 quasi seminaria, tradatur."— i?Vow Dedication of NowelVs Catechism. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. W. M. KmGSMILL, M.A., 
 
 Rector of Bredicot, and Vicar of Tibbcrton, Worcestershire. 
 
 EATON & SON, COLLEGE STREET, WORCESTER. 
 
 1876. 
 
 Price Sixpence.
 
 THE CREED, 
 
 LORD'S PRAYER, AND TEN COMMANDMENTS, 
 
 AYITH OR WITHOUT THE REMAINDER 
 
 OF THE CATECHISM ? 
 
 Discussions at Meetings and correspondence in the Press 
 on Religious instruction and education in Church of England 
 Schools and Board Schools, of late, have brought out in strong 
 relief conscientious differences of opinion amongst Churchmen 
 upon questions springing out of the subject. 
 
 A venture is made in these pages to suggest a negative to one 
 of the gravest of tlie questions asked and discussed ; the question, 
 namely, which forms their Title Page ; — 
 
 " Are the Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Command- 
 ments, dissevered from the rest of the Church CatecTiism^ an 
 authoritative scheme of Religious instruction and education for 
 the young in Schools, according to the Church of England ? " 
 
 The affirmative of the question, the answer to the contrary, 
 has been maintained in most emphatic pointed terms, as the 
 following : — ''^^ " The Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Command- 
 ments, is the basis conformable to the requirements of the Church : 
 the educational basis of the Baptismal Service." (~^ " The Church 
 herself makes these only requirements — the Creed, Lord's Prayer, 
 and Ten Commandments — for religious teaching in her Schools ; 
 nothing beyond." 
 
 They, who maintain this affirmative, would thereby make an 
 alleged, but really limited, standard of the Church's religious 
 teaching, her constitutional maximum. Further, they openly 
 advocate, under this view and on this basis, a tentative plan of 
 Church of England policy of comprehension and union in 
 religious education. 
 
 This policy is thus unfolded and urged by its originator and 
 foremost advocate, the Rev. Canon Melville, in his letters to the 
 Guardian ; — (-^^ " The basis I desire the Church to recognise, 
 
 (1) Rev. Canon Melville, Letters to the " Guardian," May 17, July 19, Aug. 9. 
 Ditto Scliool-Guardian, May 27. " This is the Church's own assigned 
 Educational basis." 
 
 (2) Churchman, Letter to '' Guardian," June 28. 
 (3) May 17, July 19.
 
 namely, the Lord's Prayer, tlic Ten Commandinent.s, tlie Apostles' 
 Creed, is conformable to the requirements of the Church and the 
 conditions imposed by the state. It is the duty of the Church 
 by all and every means in its power to introduce and sustain this 
 basis in School Board Schools. Let the Church as a duty, second 
 only to maintaining its own truth and freedom in its integrity, 
 by its educational machinery, its representative authorities, and 
 its School Board influences, acknowledge and strengthen this 
 national religious backbone." 
 
 This suggested policy is, no doubt, a practical illustration of 
 that Christian • instinct and desire for more recognised agreement 
 between the differing Bodies of professing Christians, which is 
 rising to the surface of modern thought and action, as " a sign 
 of the times." It is so formally stated by Mr. Cowper-Temple — 
 the author of the famous spinx-like enigmatical clause, 14, (2,) 
 of the Education Act, 1870— in a letter to " The Guardian," (i^ 
 where he is giving an account of his unreported speech in a late 
 Education Debate, on his own interpretation of that clause ; — 
 " I pointed out that this summary of facts, the Apostles' Creed, 
 used in connection with the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Command- 
 ments, would be a helpful guide for teachers and a satisfactory 
 test for examination, and would furnish a basis for religious 
 teaching common both to Board Schools and to Denominational 
 Schools, and a ground of imion in that respect between various 
 religious bodies." 
 
 The affirmative assertion, that the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and 
 Ten Commandments, and not the Catechism, is the authoritative 
 Educational basis of the Church, is based upon the Prayer Book. 
 An examination of it, therefore, will test the soundness of the 
 assertion. 
 
 It rests, however, really upon another assertion besides or 
 behind. The advocates of this novel view assume a distinction 
 between the teaching and pastoral offices of the Church in the 
 matter of Christian instruction and education of the young. 
 The pastor's office is assumed to dictate (^^ "the Church Catechism 
 to be taught as a preparation for Confirmation ; " the teacher's 
 office to indicate " the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Command- 
 ments, as the milk for babes suited to the days of school 
 instruction." 
 
 (1) August 9. (2) Churchman, in " Guardian," June 28. 

 
 But, the Church, as the Prayer Book will show, makes no such 
 distinction in her authoritative declarations on the subject. 
 With her, pastor and teacher are under the same obligation in 
 regard to the end, the subject-matter, the method, of religious 
 teaching for her young members. When the duty and plan of 
 training them up in Christian faith and knowledge were laid down 
 and enforced in the Prayer Book, elementary public day-schools 
 for the mass of the people did not exist. It was taken for 
 granted that the duty of religious teaching would be discharged, 
 privately by sponsors and parents, publicly by the clergy in the 
 church. 
 
 !N^ow, what was the plan laid down for their guidance ? To 
 refer first to the Baptismal Service on which this view is 
 grounded. The first reminder in the first Exhortation to the 
 sponsors is, to " see that this infant be taught, so soon as he shall 
 be able to learn what a solemn vow, promise, and profession he 
 hath here made." The first teaching and the first learning^ then, 
 are clearly grounded upon the baptismal vow. Out of the fact, 
 the fountain-head, of baptism — its grace, privileges, responsi- 
 bilities — flows the stream of religious teaching. And to what 
 source can teacher and scholar go for the Church's authoritative 
 explanatory teaching on this head but to the four first questions 
 and answers in the Catechism ? and, as scholars grow older, to 
 the sacramental teaching on baptism, in the later questions and 
 answers ? 
 
 Upon this folloivs further guidance, as to the drawn-out, 
 formularised subject-matter of the vow, and the first specified 
 means of seeking God's special grace to keep it. " That he may 
 know these things the better, ye shall call upon him to hear 
 sermons ; and chiefly ye shall provide that he may learn the 
 Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and all 
 other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his 
 soul's health." Here Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, 
 and all other things of knowledge and faith to the soul'^ health 
 are placed on the same level, as learning to be chiefly provided 
 for. And surely the Church would mean that teacher and scholar 
 should again seek for the chief provision for such learning in her 
 Catechism — in the reply to the question, " What dost thou chiefly 
 learn?'" in the personal, individualising, explanatory answer about 
 the Creed; in the introduction of the Ten Commandments through 
 the reminder of the Sponsorial promise ; in the familiar, practical.
 
 every-day life explanation of those Commandments in the two 
 Duties ; in the spiritual, subjective, truly Evangelical explanation 
 of the Lord's Prayer, used as a means of grace, in the Desire ; 
 and, linked on to its closing confession of the child's trust in 
 God's mercy, through Jesus, in the questions and answers on the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as the crowning means of grace 
 for the soul's health, for its strengthening and refreshing. 
 
 The general lack of reading power would preclude the mention 
 of the Holy Scriptures ; though instruction in them is implied in 
 the call to " hear sermons." Indeed, in the exhortation in the 
 Baptismal Service for " such as are of riper years," there is the 
 express direction to " call upon them to use all diligence to be 
 rightly instructed in God's Holy Word;" while there is no 
 mention of Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, or 
 Catechism; the direction in the rubric being that " due care be 
 taken for their examination whether they be sufficiently instructed 
 in the principles of the Christian Religion." 
 
 The second Exhortation is a summary of the first ; which is 
 thus repeated, emphasised, when one definite practical end had to 
 be pointed out, towards which all this teaching ought to lead — 
 namely, ^^^ Confirmation ; " so soon as he can say the Creed, Lord's 
 Prayer, and Ten Commandments, and be further instructed in 
 the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose." In the first, 
 he is to learn ; in the second, to say (2) them — i.e., repeat them by 
 heart. And this " further " instruction in the Catechism must be 
 assumed to be synonymous with, to refer to, to contain, in fact, the 
 teaching on the baptismal vow and means of grace, the learning 
 all those " other things " of faith and knowledge essential to the 
 health of the child's soul, of the first exhortation. Otherwise, 
 there is no escape from the extraordinary conclusion that 
 such teaching and learning could not be based upon, could 
 not be found in, the Catechism., as their textual foundation. 
 But if not found in it, to what other source does the Church 
 point teacher and learner ? While if found in it, as transparently 
 is the case, why are they to seek elsewhere, out of it ? 
 
 Again : in the explanatory direction before the Catechism 
 itself there is no division hinted at ; assigning one moiety to one 
 office and object, the other moiety to another. It points, like the 
 
 (1) " Be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed." 
 (?) "<S'a?/" — used in same sense and collocation in Exhort, in Confirmat. Service.
 
 Baptismal Exhortation, to one practical end of all this religious 
 teaching, Confirmation: — "A Catechism, that is to say, an 
 instruction to be learned of every person, before he be brought 
 to be confirmed by the Bishop." 
 
 The Rubrics at the end of the Catechism iov i^ubllc elementary 
 teaching by the clergy follow the same lines : — 
 
 " The Curate of every parish shall diligently . . . openly 
 in the church instruct and examine so many children of his parish 
 sent unto him, as he shall think convenient, in some part of this 
 Catechism. All fathers, mothers, masters, and dames shall cause 
 their children, servants, and apprentices (which have not learned 
 their Catechism) to come to the church at the time appointed, and 
 obediently to hear, and be ordered by the Curate, until such time 
 as they have learned all that is here appointed for them to learn." 
 
 The next Rubric, and also the Exhortation with which " the 
 Order of Confirmation" begins, place the Creed, Lord's Prayer, 
 and Ten Commandments, and the rest of the Catechism, on the 
 same footing with the same end in view : — 
 
 " So soon as children are come to a competent age, and can 
 say, in their mother tongue, the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten 
 Commandments, and also can answer to the other short questions 
 of this short Catechism, they shall be brought to the Bishop." 
 "The Church hath thought good to order, that none hereafter shall 
 be confirmed, but such as can say the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and 
 Ten Commandments, and can also answer to such other questions 
 as in the short Catechism are contained." 
 
 It will be in place here to refer to the Canons (1604) for 
 illustration. The 59th, on "Ministers to Catechise every Sunday," 
 repeats the substance of the first rubric above : — " Every parson 
 shall, before Evening Prayer, for half an hour or more, examine 
 and instruct the youth and ignorant persons in his parish, in the 
 Ten Commandments, the articles of the Belief, and in the Lord's 
 Prayer, and shall diligently hear, instruct, and teach them the 
 Catechism set forth in the Book of Common Prayer." 
 
 The second rubric on " Masters" is repeated word for word. 
 
 Again, when the Church had her eye more specially on 
 j^roviding extended religious teaching in Grammar Schools, " in 
 public school or private house," she most jDointedly connects such 
 provision with Catechisms, in the 79th Canon, on " The Duty of 
 Schoolmasters:'"' — "All schoolmasters ' shall teach in English or 
 Latin, as the children are able to bear, the arger or shorter
 
 8 
 
 Catechism heretofore by public authority set forth." One of the 
 Canons of 1571 had also enjoined that boys should be taught, in 
 Latin or English, one of these Catechisms. For they developed 
 and supplemented the principles and teaching of the Prayer Book 
 Catechism, by most copious yet minute explanations, definitions, 
 and Scriptural proofs. 
 
 This comparative survey of the declarations of the Church 
 would seem to prove undeniably that the Catechism, as a whole, 
 is the authorised standard of religious " instruction" required 
 from her children as scholars. And what has been the continuous 
 historical interpretation, the matter-of-fact commentary, on the 
 expressed mind of the Church ? In the parson's catechising and 
 Sunday-school in the Church of old times, in the dame's private 
 adventure day-school, in the modern developed Sunday-school 
 dating from the end of the last century, in the National day- 
 school for the poor started by the I^^ational Society in 1811, in 
 church and out of church, for Sunday and day scholar alike, the 
 recognised accepted manual or text-book of religious instruction 
 has been, and is to this day — the Church Catechism. And the 
 weight of this interpretation and practice, as against any other 
 suggested or alleged, is surely crushing ; a weight to be estimated 
 by the fact that, in the time-tables or schemes of religious 
 instruction of the 15,000 departments of day-schools in union 
 with the JSTational Society, the Catechism would be always implied, 
 if not always named. Its publication in a separate form, and 
 in the old " broken " shape, by the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, the new method of grounding stories on its 
 text, the cheapness of Prayer Books, — all this has, no doubt, 
 very much helped to popularise and sustain it as the standard. 
 
 What now is the other interpretation suggested — the contrary 
 position taken up, resting on an assumed severance between the 
 Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, and the Catechism ? 
 It is this. The Church of England is the national Church. 
 As the religious educator of the nation, on the one hand, she 
 teaches the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments. 
 As the national religious pastor, on the other, she teaches the 
 Catechism. But this view, in theory, does not dovetail in with 
 the authoritative utterances of the Church, as the above review 
 of them fairly shows. In practice, it is dead against all experience, 
 as the history of religious teaching in Church of England schools 
 for the young clearly proves.
 
 9 
 
 It involves, further, with due deference to its earnest and able 
 advocates, a curious confusion of ideas, and a singular, uncon- 
 sciously misleading, use of terms. 
 
 For it seems to imply that the Catechism is a something, an 
 educating text-book, complete in itself, independent of Creed, 
 Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments. Whether you leave or 
 take away those Three, there is still the Church Catechism ! 
 And, correlative with this idea or representation, it seems to 
 imply that the Church of England is a duality, so to say : that 
 she has two personalities, and therefore two mouths. So that 
 with the one mouth she can and does say, I only teach the Creed, 
 Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments ; with the other, I only 
 teach the Catechism. Whereas she is but one^ and has but one 
 mouth, and but one teaching Catechism. And when she instructs 
 or teaches, from that one mouth comes forth her one Catechism ; 
 in which, and in which only, are Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten 
 Commandments, set out verbatim as Forms to be learned; in 
 which only are they explained for her children. Indeed they are 
 vitally part and parcel of it : of its very essence. How much 
 would remain without them ? For, blot out all that leads up to, 
 or flows out of, them ; take away, for instance, the explanations 
 of the baptismal obligations — That I should believe, &c.. That I 
 should keep, &c., and the answers to the questions — What did 
 your godfathers, &c.? Dost thou not think that thou art bound, 
 &c.? Rehearse the articles, &c.; What dost thou chiefly learn,&c.? 
 Tell me how many, &c. ; What dost thou chiefly learn ? What is 
 thy duty, &c. ? Let me hear, &c. ; What desirest thou, &c. ? — 
 thus take away Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments, 
 and all bound up with them, and two-thirds of the Catechism are 
 gone. Or, from another point of view, take away those Three, 
 and most of those questions would be pointless. 
 
 Were the Church, then, to wrench up Creed, Lord's Prayer, 
 and Ten Commandments, out of her Catechism, w^icre they have 
 now their educational foothold, and to set them down elsewhere 
 as an independent educational engine, she would herself depreciate 
 most grievously, as friend and foe might justly exclaim, that 
 sundered Catechism as a means and instrument of Christian 
 instruction and interpretation as to the primary truths of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Any private person can teach the young those three, as Formu- 
 laries, outside of the Catechism ; the Church, certainly, docs not.
 
 10 
 
 Yet this she is asked now to do, on the strength of a novel inter- 
 pretation of her declaration Sy unsupported by experience ; to take, 
 in this respect, a leap in the dark, in her action on schools outside 
 of her ; to make a venture, discarding tlie practice and experience 
 of the past, which may react most injuriously on her own schools, 
 in lowering their standard, damping voluntary help, tempting 
 subscribers to think and say — If that standard for Board Schools 
 is the constitutionally required standard of the Church, why not 
 have the same one for Church Schools, then transfer them so 
 transformed to school boards, and maintain them by rates ? 
 
 Most grave practical issues are thus raised — Shall Creed, Lord's 
 Prayer, and Ten Commandments be taught mith or ivitlwut their 
 illustrative definite dogmatic sacramental frame-work in the 
 Church Catechism ? To decide — let them be taught idthout — 
 would be to deal a heavy blow at that catechetical form of sound 
 wo¥ds which has been a sheet-anchor to the Church of England 
 in her training of the young, to hold her fast from drifting away, 
 as a body, into perilous extremes ; so that she has become, under 
 such a standard, the religious educator in the knowledge and 
 faith of Christ, in tim-fhirds of the public elementary schools. 
 
 And these pregnant issues are being forced now on the consider- 
 ation of Diocesan boards of education. Can they, or can they not, 
 give their impnmai'Z^r theoretically, their honafide help practically, 
 to Board schools or other schools, where there is no ^^^ " declara- 
 tion" or guarantee that "the religious instruction shall be in 
 conformity with the doctrine and discipline of the Established 
 Church," which are not and cannot be Church of England ones, 
 where the Catechism may be formally or virtually prohibited, not 
 simply by managers only ; but where its use would be against 
 the law of the land, though managers might desire its teaching, 
 and the majority of school children might be baptised members 
 of the Church ? 
 
 Churchmen, surely, can fearlessly appeal to a past and present 
 of great and growing results, from its use in its integrity. 
 This success supplies a most practical and forcible reason why 
 they should take their stand on its old familiar lines, covering 
 its whole ground, not giving up one inch ; why they should hold 
 fast that form of sound words, so well known, wherever the 
 English Church is known ; in which the Ten Commandments of 
 
 (1) National Society's Fourth Term of Union.
 
 11 
 
 the elder dispensation are embedded, the Prayer of the Divine 
 Head of the Church enshrined, the oldest Creed of Christendom 
 set, Christ's ordained sacraments illumined ; from which master 
 teaches and scholar learns, as fellow-members of Christ, "baptised 
 into one body by one Spirit;" which parents and children have 
 learnt and handed on as a prized spiritual heir-loom from one to 
 the other, for so many generations. They would say, Let this 
 proved successful standard remain tlie standard to aim at, for 
 those who use, or may be allowed to use, at present only a 
 maimed minimum one ; rather than say. That mamimum tried one 
 is higher and more than the Church requires, that minimum — 
 (the wrongly assumed maximum) — is her correct one. Such a 
 proposition, accepted and worked out in practice by authority, 
 would tend to drag down the maximum to the minimum, and to 
 make even that less by degrees. 
 
 These considerations, on the increasing use and deepening hold 
 of the Catechism, give vital force to the previous argument from 
 the comparative survey of the declarations in the Prayer Book, 
 from the point of view of the Prayer Book as it is. But the 
 argument, which would suggest a negative to the Question asked 
 on the Title-page, has yet to be supplemented and strengthened 
 by surveying the Baptismal Exhortations, Catechism and Rubrics, 
 and Canons on Catechism, in another light — in that of their 
 'Historical groioth and construction. With this object, facts and 
 statements, which are apt to be forgotten or put out of mind, 
 will now be woven together, out of standard authorities, (i) 
 
 A kindred survey, however, of great interest leads up to, and 
 for a while runs along with, this proposed historical survey. 
 
 The Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments, should 
 form the elementary and fruitful germ of a baptised child's 
 instruction in the Christian covenant, in Christian knowledge, 
 faith, duty, prayerful communion with God, from the dawn and 
 first workings of intelligence and spiritual moral consciousness, 
 subsequent to Baptism. 
 
 It wdll be very pertinent, then, to look back to the position and 
 
 (1) Johnson's Laws and Canons of the Church of England. Sparrow's Collec- 
 tion of Articles, Injunctions, &c. Strype's Cranmer. Parker Society editions of 
 Clay's Liturgies, &c. of Queen Elizabeth. Clay's Private Prayers. Primer, &c. 
 of Queen Elizabeth. Ketley's Liturgies of Edward VI. Cardwell's History of 
 the Prayer Book Conferences. Archb. Wake's Catechism. Chui-ton's Life of 
 Nowell. Jacobson's edition of Nowell's " Catechismus." Palmer's Origincs Litur- 
 gicsG. Bullcy's Variation of the Baptismal Offices, &c.
 
 12 
 
 use which those Three — as Formularies to be taught or learnt — 
 one, two, or all, have held from the earliest times, in the English 
 Church, up to her Reformation era in tlie 16th century. This 
 can only be done in the light thrown out by her ancient Laws, 
 Canons, and Rituals. A complete chronological catena^ therefore, 
 of all the illustrations on the subject which has been made out of 
 Johnson's Collection — extending from a.d. GOl to 1519 — will here 
 be in place. 
 
 A.D. 740. Excerptions of Archbishop Ecgbright for Province of 
 York. " 6. That every priest do with great exactness instil 
 the Lord's Prayer and Creed into the people committed to him, 
 and shew them to endeavour after the knowledge of the whole 
 of religion, and the practice of Christianity," 
 
 A.D. ^^7. Archbishop Cuthbert's Canons at Synod of Cloves- 
 hoo. "11. That all priests be right in their sentiments con- 
 cerning the belief of the Trinity. That they, in the first place, 
 teach all that come to take directions concerning their own life 
 from them, that without faith it was impossible to please God ; 
 and that they instil the Greed into them, that they may know 
 what to believe, and what to hope for." 
 
 A.D. 785. Legatine Canons at Synod at Cealchythe. " 2. The 
 priests of every Church, who are to teach the people, that all 
 in general know the Greed and the Lord's Prayer.'' 
 
 A.D. 877. The Ecclesiastical Laws of King Alfred begin with 
 the Ten Gommandments, translated by that true father of his 
 people into Anglo-Saxon, for their benefit, followed by thirty- 
 nine judicial Laws, translated out of Exodus ; closing with the 
 solemn admonition, "These are the dooms which God Almighty 
 Himself spake to Moses, and enjoined him to observe." 
 
 A.D. 957. Archbishop Elfric's Canons. " 23. The mass-priest 
 on Sundays and mass-days, shall speak the sense of the Gospel 
 to the people in English, and of the Pater Noster and the Greed, 
 as oft as he can, for the inciting of the people to know their 
 belief, and retaining their Christianity." 
 
 A.D. 960. Canons in King Edgar's reign. " 17. That every 
 Christian man diligently win or accustom his child to Christi- 
 anity, and teach him Pater Noster and Gredo. 22. That every 
 man learn to be expert at Pater Noster et Gredo, as he desires to 
 lie in holy ground, or to be worthy of the housel," i.e. the Holy 
 Communion.
 
 13 
 
 A.D. 994. Archbishop Elfric's transhition into A Saxon of 
 Theodulf's Capitula. "22. All believers in general from least 
 to greatest are to be reminded that every one learn the LorcVs 
 Prayer and the Greed, and to be told and to observe, that on 
 these two is the ground-work of the whole Christian belief. 
 Unless one can sing both of these, and so believeth as he there 
 saith, and prays often for himself, he cannot be a good Christian. 
 23. Christian laymen are to be told, that every one should pray 
 for himself twice a day at least. Unless he be expert at Pater 
 Noster et Credo, let him sing or say, ' Lord, Thou hast fashioned 
 and formed me, be merciful, God, to me a sinner,' &c., and 
 let him thank God," &c. 
 
 A.D. 1017. King Cnute's Laws Ecclesiastical, " made with 
 consent of his wise men to the praise of God, and his own royal 
 dignity, and the benefit of his people," at Winchester. " 22. 
 We charge that every Christian learn to know at the least the 
 right faith, and be expert at Pater Noster et Credo. With one 
 of them the Cliristian should pray to God, with the other declare 
 his right faith. Christ first sang Pater Noster, and taught that 
 prayer to His disciples. He that inwardly sings this does his 
 own message to God for every necessary want, in relation to 
 this or the future life." 
 
 A.D. 1281. Archbishop Peckham's Constitutions at Lambeth. 
 " 9. We enjoin every priest who presides over a people do four 
 times in the year, by himself or by some other, expound to 
 the people in the vulgar tongue, without any fantastical affec- 
 tation of subtilty, tJie 14 articles of faith, the 10 commaiidments 
 of the Decalogue, the 2 precepts of the Gospel, or of love to 
 God and man, the 7 works of mercy, the 7 capital sins, the 7 
 principal vii'tues, the 7 sacraments of grace." These 14 articles 
 of faith, or the Creed, are then " summed up," — as, " 7 belong- 
 ing to the mystery of the Trinity, 4 to the Deity intrinsically, 
 3 to its operations, 7 to Christ's humanity," — and briefly 
 explained. The Ten Commandments are more fully explained. 
 
 A.D. 1466. Constitutions of Archbishop Nevill, of York. 1. 
 Repeats the above Peckham Constitution, enjoining priests to 
 " instruct the faithful in the Catholic faith," in the same way. 
 
 These ancient memorials of tlic Church of England shew, so 
 far as they go, first, that Religious Instruction in the Creed and 
 Lord's Prayer — to know and say them — was the rule, but in the
 
 14 
 
 Ten Commandments, perhaps, the exception, as in Alfred's Laws 
 and Peckham's Constitutions ; second, that such instniction was 
 to be chiefly in the vernacular tongue of the common people. 
 This latter practice proves the earnest, though intermittent, effort 
 to cultivate an intelligent knowledge of Christianity : amid the 
 immense difficulties which beset the pathway of knowledge for 
 so many centuries — through incursions of Danes, conquest by 
 Normans, Civil wars, dependence upon the alien crutch of a 
 domineering Italian spiritual monarchy — during which the hetero- 
 geneous population of England was welded into a homogeneous 
 people speaking one language. 
 
 The later Memorials of her Reformation era up to 1560 prove 
 that these tw^o principles^-teaching and learning all the Three, 
 and in the language of the day only — were developed and pressed 
 with the greatest care and authority. A series of illustrations 
 on this point, then, may be aptly linked on here with the former 
 one : leaving alone those in the Prayer Book during that period, 
 referred to elsewhere. 
 
 A.D. 1536. Henry VIII. Injunctions of Cromwell, framed by 
 Cranmer, enjoined to teach first the parents and masters them- 
 selves, and by them their children and servants, the Creed, the 
 Lord's Prayer, and the Teri Commandments, " in their mother 
 tongue." 
 
 A.D. 1545. Primer of King Henry VIII. The Injunction in 
 the Preface " charges every schoolmaster and bringer up of 
 young begynners in learnyng, to teache this Primer in Englishe 
 unto them, specially for that they are taught by divers persons 
 the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Crede, and Ten Commandments^ 
 all in Latin, and not in Englishe, by meanes whereof they are 
 not brought up in the knowledge of their faith, dutie, and 
 obedience." 
 
 A.D. 1547. Injunctions of King Edward VI. " That every 
 holiday throughout the year, when they — the Ecclesiastical 
 persons — have no sermon, they shall immediately after the 
 Gospel, openly and plainly recite to their Parishioners, in the 
 pulpit, the Pater Noster, the Credo, and the Ten Commandments, 
 in Englishe, to the intent the people may learn the same by 
 heart; exhorting all parents and householders to teach their 
 children and servants the same, as they are bound by the Law 
 of God and in conscience to do. They shall in confessions
 
 16 
 
 every Lent examine every person that cometli to Confession to 
 tlietn, whether they can recite the Articles of their Faith, the 
 Pater Noster, and the Ten Gommandments, in English, and hear 
 them say the same particularly." 
 A.D. 1548. Articles of Visitation by Cranmer, in the Diocese of 
 Canterbury. "Whether Parsons, Vicars, and Curates have 
 not every holy-day, wiien they have no Sermon, immediately 
 after the Gospel, openly, plainly, and distinctly, recited to their 
 Parishioners, in the Pulpit, the Tater Noster, the Creed, and the 
 Ten Commandments, in English. Item, whether every Lent 
 they examine such persons as come to Confession to them» 
 whether they can recite " the same. 
 A.D. 1550. Ridley's Articles of Visitation for Diocese of London. 
 " Whether the Curate doth admit any to the Communion before 
 he be confirmed, or any that ken not the Pater Noster, Articles 
 of Faith, and Ten Commandments in English." 
 A.D. 1559. Injunctions by Queen Elizabeth. 5. The same as 
 that of King Edward's given above : except that the examina- 
 tions at Lenten confessions are omitted. 44. " Every Parson, 
 Vicar, and Curate, shall upon every holy day, and every second 
 Sunday in the year, hear and instruct the youth of the parish, 
 for half an hour at the least, before Evening Prayer, in the 
 Ten Commandments, the Articles of the Belief, and the Lord's 
 Prayer, and diligently examine them." 
 A.D. 1559. Articles of Visitation, Queen Elizabeth. The same 
 as that by Archbishop Cranmer (1548), whether " they recite 
 Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments in English to 
 their Parishioners distinctly in the Pulpit." 
 But the recognition of the status of the people, as a Christian one, 
 — the connexion, therefore, of the fact, the covenant, the vow, of 
 Baptism — underlay all this teaching and learning. These forms 
 of sound words were put forth for their instruction and education, 
 because they had been brought, sacramentally, into the fold of 
 Jesus. This point may be seen, from the following series of 
 extracts from the ancient documents quoted by name above, under 
 the allusions to the " Catechisings," i.e. the Interrogatories or 
 questions " proposed " or put at Baptism to the child, (not to 
 the God-parents as now, though in their presence,) Dost thou 
 renounce, Dost thou believe, &c. ; in the rule that God-parents 
 ought to know themselves the Creed, Lord's Prayer, &c. in the- 
 exhortation to teach their God-children the same.
 
 16 
 
 A.D. 747. Cuthbert's Canons. " 11. That the Priests propose 
 the Creed to infants, and to them who undertake for them in 
 Baptism, and teach them the renunciation of diabolical pomps, 
 and auguries, and divinations, afterwards teach to make the 
 established professions." 
 
 A.D. 785. Canons at Cealchythe. " 2. That all who undertake 
 for children at the font, know that they are sureties to the 
 Lord, according to their sponsion, for the renouncing of Satan, 
 his works, and pomps ; for their believing of the Creed ; that 
 they may teach them the Lord's Prayer aforesaid, and the Creed, 
 while they are coming to ripeness of age. For if they do not, 
 what is promised to God, in behalf of them that cannot speak, 
 shall be with rigour exacted of them. We enjoin this be 
 charged on the memories of all people." 
 
 A.D. 960. King Edgar's Canons. " 22. He who refuseth to 
 learn Pater Noster et Credo, is not a good Christian, and cannot 
 of right undertake for others at Baptism, nor at the Bishop's 
 hands." 
 
 A.D. 994. Theodulf's Capitula. " 22. It was an ancient custom, 
 that none who did not know the Credo and Pater Noster, should 
 be surety for any one either at the Bishop's hand or at Baptism . 
 and that none should support — (i.e. as surety hold the person 
 to be baptised or conJSrmcd) — such an one at his receiving 
 Baptism or being bishoped, unless he were one that was not of 
 age to learn them." 
 
 A.D. 1017. King Cnute's Laws. " 22. Nor is he a good Christian 
 who will not learn the Pater Noster : nor can he be surety for 
 another at Baptism, much more at the Bishop's hands — (at 
 Confirmation) — till he have first learned well to rehearse it." 
 
 A.D. 1236. Archbishop Edmund's Constitutions. " 12. If a child 
 be baptised by a layman, let what goes before the immersion," 
 — i.e. the exorcisms and catechisms — " and what follows after, 
 be fully supplied by the Priest." 
 
 A.D. 1279. Archbishop Peckham's Constitations at Reading. 
 " 4. On times of baptising children ; that those born within 
 eight days before Easter and before Pentecost, be reserved to 
 be baptised at those times, if it may be done without danger, 
 so that they receive Catechism," — i.e. the interrogatories, &c. — 
 " between the time of their birth and their being thus perfectly 
 baptised." 
 
 A.D. 1281. Ditto at Lambeth. " 3. Let the exorcisms and
 
 17 
 
 catechisms be used over cliildren so baptised, in reverence to 
 the ordinances of the Church." 
 
 The above far-off glimpses reveal the custom characteristic of 
 the early and middle-age English Church ; that, namQlj, of an 
 Exhortation to Sponsors : while the Exhortation itself exhibits, 
 in a striking manner, the connexion between Baptism and two, 
 certainly, out of the three Formularies of Belief, Prayer, and 
 Duty. The insistence on teaching and learning them rested on 
 the fact and principle, that the intended scholars had been made 
 members of the Church of Christ, It was to be expected, there- 
 fore, that such a course of instruction would be actually laid 
 down at the administration of Baptism. And her ancient 
 Baptismal Offices prove this to have been the case. In them the 
 Priest is directed to enjoin the Sponsorial duty, either by a Latin 
 rubric, as in the following one from the Salisbury Manual : — 
 " Item compatribus et commatribus injungatur ut doceant inf an- 
 tem Pater Noster, et Ave Maria, et Credo in Deurru, vel doceri 
 faciant ; " or, in a specified address in the vernacular, as in the 
 following one from a York ]\Ianual : — " I commando ow Godfadre 
 and Codmodre that ye chargen the fadur and the modur of this 
 child. . . that ye or they teachen his rghte believe, hure jpater noster, 
 and hure Ave Maria, and hure Credo, or do him bes tauhte." 
 
 Such is the chain of evidence, stretching on from the 7th to 
 the 16th century, as to the ijosition which the Creed and Lord's 
 Prayer always, the Ten Commandments occasionally, have held 
 in the Church of England, as religious Formularies of instruction 
 for the people, to be taught and learnt. 
 
 Out of this customary form of Teaching and Exhortation grew 
 the fully-developed Exhortation of the present Prayer Book. 
 Just as the Reformation-Laws and Injunctions gathered up into 
 one. Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments, as the text 
 and Forms for the instruction of the baptised, (leaving, for the 
 moment, for convenience sake, the Catechism out of consideration), 
 so the Prayer Book gathered them up into one, as subject-matter 
 for the Exhortation to God-parents at Baptism. The Ten Com- 
 mandments, the holy law of obedience, were to be no longer 
 only occasionally enjoined in a forrnal manner. Henceforth, in 
 Ritual or in Instruction, in Church or in School, in the act of 
 administering Baptism, in the act of Teaching, in the two aspects 
 or sides of Christian Education, its plan and its cause, — the Jiovj 
 men teach, and the why they so teach, the Three were severally 
 c
 
 18 
 
 and formally, 1)ouik1 uji together : while the two phases, so to say, 
 blend into one whole, throngh the mutual interdependence of cause 
 and result. The basis — that is, the formularies — of tlie child's 
 education is to be such, because lie is a Christian child. But, 
 while the scholar is taught such Formularies, he must learn also 
 the reason why he is so taught. " Know this, my good Christian 
 child, because thou hast been made in thy Baptism a member of 
 Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
 heaven, therefore learn thus to believe, pray, and do thy duty 
 towards God and thy neighbour." 
 
 All this is, for the first time, forcibly expressed, in effect, in the 
 Baptismal Office of the first Prayer Book of King Edward VI., 
 1549. In it the ancient custom, with the omission of the Ave 
 Maria, is enforced and amplified by the insertion of the Ten 
 Commandments, and of additional matter on the "vow, sermons, 
 and other things," with a view to education. The Exhortation 
 runs thus : — 
 
 " Forasmuch as these children have promised by you to forsalce 
 the devil and all his works, to believe in God, and to serve him ; 
 you must remember that it is your parts and duty to see that 
 these infants be taught, so soon as they shall be able to learn, 
 what a solemn vow, promise, and profession, they have made by 
 you. And that they may know these things the better, ye shall 
 call upon them to hear sermons ; and chiefly you shall provide 
 that they may learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten 
 Commandments in the English tongue, and all other things which 
 a Christian man ought to know and believe to his soul's health ; 
 and that these children may be virtuously brought up to lead a 
 godly and Christian life ; remembering always that Baptism doth 
 represent unto us our profession ; which is, to follow the example 
 of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto Him : that, as 
 He died and rose again for us, so should we, who are baptised, 
 die from sin, and rise again unto righteousness ; continually 
 mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceed- 
 ing in all virtue and godliness of living." 
 
 This Exhortation is almost identical, word for word, with the 
 present one. The words in italics shew the slight verbal varia- 
 tions ; while the additions in situ — "their sureties... here... man" — 
 are immaterial. 
 
 But the point is that, in it, to " learn" " the solemn vow, the 
 Creed, and the Ten Commandments," and " all other things which
 
 19 
 
 a Cliristiau man ought to know and believe to his soul's health," 
 was then enjoined altogether for the first time, and in that order 
 of learning, and has so remained for more than three centuries 
 to the present day. 
 
 There was no second Exhortation in King Edward's Books. 
 But a Rubric enjoined the Minister to "command that the children 
 be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed of him, so soon as they 
 can say in their vulgar tongue the Articles of the Faith, the 
 Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments ; and be further 
 instructed in the Catechism set forth for that purpose, accordingly 
 as it is there expressed." 
 
 In the final Revision, 1662, this Rubric was replaced by the 
 present second Exhortation, virtually, though not quite verbally, 
 identical with it, up to the closing sentence — " accordingly as it 
 is there expressed;" that is, according to the order, matter, and 
 method of instruction set out there, in the Catechism. This last 
 sentence — as being tautologous almost with the preceding one, 
 " set forth for that purpose," and therefore superfluous — was 
 omitted. It was sufficient to point, once for all, to the Catechism 
 as "set forth for" the "purpose" of Instruction; not for the 
 "purpose" of Confirmation. 
 
 For such instruction naturally and necessarily linked itself on 
 with the antecedent event which had actually taken place, viz. — 
 Baptism; and was, further, naturally and necessarily explanatory 
 of an accomplished fact and recognized status, viz. — the Baptismal 
 covenant and condition ; while it would be only secondarily 
 connected with a subsequent event, as a probability which might 
 or might not happen, viz. — Confirmation. 
 
 The latter is the novel interpretation lately advanced C^^ in 
 support of the novel theory of an authorised severance of the 
 Catechism ; an interpretation which supplies an argument for the 
 affirmative reply to the question under discussion. 
 
 The special purpose, for which the Catechism was set forth, 
 was, instruction. The explanatory title itself seems to suggest 
 this — "A Catechism, that is to say, an Instruction." An expected 
 result, flowing out of that purpose when fulfilled, would be 
 Confirmation. The setting forth of the Catechism may, in the 
 fact of this result being attained, be said to involve two ends — 
 the primary one, instruction ; the secondary one, depending upon 
 it, Confirmation. But the great idea was that the child should 
 (1) Rev. Canon Melville, Guardian, July 19.
 
 20 
 
 be instructed : not only " instructed " to learn and say the Creed, 
 Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments, as they were contained 
 in the Catechism ; but ^^ fiuiher instructed in" all else contained 
 or expressed in it. The child, when so " instructed," was so far 
 capable of Confirmation, and might be confirmed. One condi- 
 tional proviso was, that the instruction should have been given 
 through the Church Catechism. 
 
 The cardinal misinterpretation of the words "for that purpose," 
 which would refer them to Confirmation, is made no donbt in 
 forgetfulness of the omission of the explanatory tautologons 
 sentence in King Edward's Books — "accordingly as it is tliere'^ — 
 that is, in the Catechism — " expressed." 
 
 The Catechism, then, was to be nsed, not only to instruct the 
 baptised child how to learn and say — that is, repeat by heart — 
 the Three Formularies ; but also for the purpose of " further " 
 instruction — by the process of authoritative catechetical explana- 
 tion — in their meaning, and their relation to the child's Baptism, 
 its privileges and vows. 
 
 Thus, the Baptismal vow to be taught and learnt. Creed, Lord's 
 Prayer, and Ten Commandments to be learnt and said, the all 
 other things to be known and believed, further instruction in the 
 Catechism — all this was, from the first, contentporaneous, and in 
 the same order of subject-matter. 
 
 And what was this Catechism set forth in 1st Book of King 
 Edward, 1549 ? The same almost, word for word, with the present 
 one, except where some of the commandments were shortened, 
 ending with the Desire ; so that both in the Exhortation and 
 Catechism, teaching on Baptism preceded that on Creed, Lord's 
 Prayer, and Commandments, from the first. 
 
 And where was its place in King Edward's Books ? In the 
 Order for Confirmation, between the Rubrics and the Service 
 itself ; the heading of which is, " Confirmation, wherein is 
 contained a Catechism for children;" " this short Catechism," as 
 one of the Rubrics terms it. In this very fact of position^ the 
 office of Pastor and Teacher is visibly knit together, one and 
 the same in regard to instructing in the Catechism as a whole. 
 A separation into two parts — one for the Pastor's office, the other 
 for the Teacher's office — would be, in the face of such position 
 out of the question. 
 
 One of the closing rubrics, too, was the same word for word 
 with the present one, enjoining " children, servants, and appren-
 
 21 
 
 tices, which have not learned their Catechism, to come to Church 
 to hear and be ordered bj the Cnrate until such time as they have 
 learned all that is here apj)ointed for them to learn." 
 
 The intention of this rubric was further enforced by one of 
 Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, 1559. " 4. Every Parson, Vicar, 
 and Curate, shall upon every holyday and upon every second 
 Sunday in the year, teach the youth of the parish the Catechism 
 set forth in the Book of Public Prayer." 
 
 Other authoritative efforts were made to popularise it as a lohole, 
 to make it the manual to leaven the religious education of the 
 children of all classes, privately at home, as well as publicly in 
 Church, by its publication in other books besides the Prayer Book. 
 With this object, it was published in the Primers, that is, " Books 
 of Private Prayer, needful to be used of all Christians;" in those 
 of King Edward VL, 1552 and 1553; of Queen Elizabeth, 1566 
 and 1575 ; also in the Orarium, or Little Book of Private Prayer, 
 1560, and Preces Privatce, 1564, of Queen Elizabeth, both approved 
 and published by Royal Authority. 
 
 The Catechism, enlarged and completed in its present shape, 
 at the Final Revision 1662 was removed out of the Confirmation 
 Office to its present, independent, more convenient position. 
 But its integrity, as a manual of instruction, complete in itself 
 and indivisible, even with the great addition on the Sacraments, 
 was still maintained. This purpose is pointedly clear, from the 
 retention of its first title, the same to this day, since 1549, with 
 the slight changes of "child" into "person," and "of " into "by," 
 — " A Catechism, that is to say, an Instruction to be learned of 
 every person, before he be brought to be confirmed by the Bishop." 
 The change of child into person in 1662 was due to the fact that 
 then, for the first time, an Office of Baptism for such as are of 
 riper years was provided. 
 
 Previous indeed to its first publication in 1549, persistent efforts 
 had been made, under Henry VIII., to pave the way for the more 
 intelligent instruction of people generally in the meaning of Creed, 
 Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, by 
 expositions of them published by authority ; as in " A Goodly 
 Primer, or Book of Prayers," 1535, called " The King's Primer"; 
 in " The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man," 1537, 
 called "The Bishop's Book;" in "A Necessary Doctrine and 
 Erudition for any Christian Man," 1543, called " The King's 
 Book." Such an Exposition, again, short but not catechetical,
 
 22 
 
 was published in " Cranmcr's Catccliism," 1548, for the " com- 
 modity and profit of children and young people," dedicated to 
 King Edward VI. 
 
 Alongside of this provision of a short simple Catechism for all 
 baptised children, when Books and Readers were equally scarce 
 amongst the common people, provision was made of fuller 
 Catechisms drawn up on the same principles, for the comparative 
 few who should attend the old and new Grammar schools. Such 
 a provision was in harmony with the piety and wisdom of some 
 of the sagacious ecclesiastical advisers of King Edward VI., who 
 would have made his name famous and his reign conspicuous for 
 Grammar Schools — seed-sowing places of Religious Education 
 and sound learning — spread over the land. As indeed his name 
 still lives in the few that were founded during his short reign — 
 King Edward the Sixth's Grammar Schools. King and Coun- 
 cillor alike would have Christian and Secular knowledge walk 
 lovingly together, hand in hand, the one hallowing the other. 
 This desire and provision for unity in Religious teaching was 
 illustrated by the desire and provision for uniformity in Gram- 
 matical teaching. One and the same Catechism — one and the 
 same Grammar : such seemed the ruling idea. So in 1562 Arch- 
 bishop Parker proposed, " As there is one uniform Grammar^ 
 prescribed throughout the Schools of the whole realm, so there 
 may be authorised one perfect Catechism, for the bringing up of 
 the youth in godliness in the said schools." And the 79th Canon, 
 (1604) enjoined " All schoolmasters shall teach the larger or 
 shorter Catechism : and they shall teach the Grammar set forth 
 by King Henry VIII., &c., and none other." 
 
 In 1553, what is called the Catechism of King Edward VI. 
 was published. " A short Catechism or plain instruction, con- 
 taining the sum of Christian learning, set forth by the King's 
 Majesty's authority, for all schoohnasters to teach." The King's 
 letter prefixed says, " There was presented unto us, to be perused, 
 a short and playne order of Catechisme, written by a certayne 
 godly e and learned man. We committed the debatinge and 
 diligent examination thereof to certain Bishoppes and other 
 learned men, whose judgment we have in greate estimation. 
 And because it seemed agreeable with the Scriptures and the 
 ordynaunces of our Realme, we have commanded it to be pub- 
 lished, and to be taught by all schoolmasters, immediately after 
 the other brief Catechism, which we have already set forth."
 
 23 
 
 It is in Latin, in the form of a dialogue ; Creed, Lord's Prayer, 
 and some of the Commandments are explained ; while the Sacra- 
 ments are treated of under the article, " The Holy Catholic 
 Church, the Communion of Saints." An English translation 
 was printed in the same yeai', under" theKynge's Majestie's letters 
 patentes." 
 
 In 1561, Queen Elizabeth's Commissioners agreed to propose 
 that besides the short Catechism for children, there should be one 
 for Communicants, and another, in Latin, for schools. 
 
 Convocation in 1562 took the matter in hand. Then Dean 
 No well became prominent as the leading author and compiler of 
 Church Catechisms. The Archbishop's minutes of desiderata to 
 be proposed run thus : — " These — a Catechism to be set forth in 
 Latin, which is already done by Mr. Dean of St. Pauls, and 
 wanteth only viewing ; Certain Articles containing the principal 
 grounds of the Christian Religion ; the Apology ; ... to be joined 
 in one book, and by common consent to be authorised, as con- 
 taining true doctrine, and enjoined to be taught to the youth in 
 the Universities and Grammar Schools throughout the realm, and 
 in Cathedral Churches and Collegiate, and in private houses." 
 Again — " And that the said Catechism of the Dean of St. Paul's, 
 being once approved by the learned of the Convocation House, 
 may be authorised to be taught also by the Universities, and to 
 the youth wheresoever they be taught their grammar in any 
 private men's houses." His Catechism, called " Catechismus 
 puerorum," was agreed upon by the Lower House, " by them 
 unanimously approved and allowed as their own book and owned 
 doctrine ;" and presented by the Prolocutor, ISTowell himself, to 
 the Upper. In 1570, Nowell, at the request of the Archbishops, 
 published first his Longer Catechism, and next his Shorter one. 
 He published also a third, the smallest. In the Dedicatory 
 Address to the Archbishops and Bishops he writes of his " three 
 Catechismes," that they " may not only serve yong beginners, or 
 more forward scholers, in the Grammer Schole, to the same uses, 
 and to the learnyng of true Religion, but the last also might seeme 
 not unprofitable unto many ecclesiastical ministers for divers good 
 purposes." The Canons of the Province of Canterbury, 1571, 
 enjoined schoolmasters to teach, in Latin or English, his Catechism 
 published 1570. While in 1578, the University of Oxford in a 
 statute passed for grounding youth in true religion, placed at the 
 head of a list of books to be read for that purpose, Nowell's larger
 
 24 
 
 Catecliisni, And when the Canon 79 (1G04) crowned the work, 
 by enjoining all schoolmasters to " teach in English or Latin, as 
 the children are able to bear, tbe larger or shorter Catechism 
 heretofore by public authority set forth," it referred no doubt 
 to his. 
 
 His " larger " Catechism, of which the " shorter " one was 'an 
 abridgment, is constructed on a very comprehensive, intellectual, 
 plan. It discusses, in a series of 393 questions and answers, 
 between Magister and Auditor, (nearly | of the answers being as 
 long or longer than the longest in the present Catechism,) the 
 following subjects in order : — The Christian Religion, the word 
 of God and of Scripture, Law and obedience under the Ten 
 Commandments, the Grospel and Faith under the several articles 
 of the Apostles' Creed, Justification and Works, Prayer and 
 Thanksgiving under the Lord's Prayer, The Sacraments and 
 Divine Mysteries, Catechising, Confirmation, and Ecclesiastical 
 Discipline. These subjects are illustrated by marginal references 
 to the extraordinary number of 2975 passages of Scripture ; 
 seven texts on an average to each answer. On this point Nowell 
 himself remarks in his prefatory address to the Archbishops and 
 Bishops : — " Et quo major fides atque authoritas vebus adjunge- 
 retur, testimonia Divina ex Sacris Literis in margine libri passim 
 notavi, quibus sibi quisque, vil aliis, cum heerent, satisfacere 
 possit." And the Bishop of Winchester, in his admonition to the 
 people of England, 1589, referring to the copious and exhaustive 
 method of treatment of Nowell, as a Theologian, in his largest 
 Catechism, writes : — " For a Catechism, I refer them to that 
 which was made by the learned and godly man, Mr. N'owell, 
 Dean of St. Paul's, received and allowed by the Church of 
 England, and very fully grounded upon the word of God, 
 There you may see all the parts of true religion received, the 
 difficulties expounded, the truth declared, the corruptions of the 
 Church of Rome rejected." 
 
 Its great value and popularity are attested by the facts that 
 there are seven known editions within ten years, from 1570 
 to 1580, and three editions in English from 1570 to 1573. For, 
 such a Catechism would and did amply supplement the advanced 
 intellectual religious instruction, which scholars of the middle 
 and upper classes needed, but which the simple short Prayer 
 Book one did not supply. The object of that is aptly summarised 
 in the Bishop's answer at the Savoy Conference : — " The
 
 25 
 
 Catecliism is not intended as a whole body of Divinity, but as a 
 comprehension of the articles of faith, and other doctrines 
 most necessary to salvation, and being short is fittest for 
 children and common people." The wonderful ultimate success 
 of it, as an Educational Religious manual, amongst the children 
 of all classes, shews that in this Episcopal declaration was 
 wrapt up an unconscious Episcopal augury of the great future 
 before it, in virtue of its truly Catholic intrinsic merits. 
 
 Instruction in one or more of No well's Catechisms would have 
 been preceded, naturally and usually, by instruction in the Prayer 
 Book Catechism. But it is important to note, from the family 
 likeness to it and its sacramental framework, the plan and subject- 
 matter of his smallest one, best adapted for " yong beginners," 
 junior scholars. It was an exact translation into Latin of the 
 Prayer-Book Catechism, with two great additions; namely, sixteen 
 questions and answers on the relative duties of subjects, children, 
 servants, parents, married persons, after the Duty to our Neigh- 
 bour ; and eighteen on the two Sacraments, closing it. 
 
 It has been suggested, indeed, that the Catechism itself of 
 1549, thus translated and incorporated, was his composition too. 
 Izaak Walton, who knew some of his cotemporaries, seems 
 to assert it as a well-known fact, in his affectionate eulogium on 
 his character. He was " a man," he writes in his Complete 
 Angler, ^^^ " so noted for his meek spirit, deep learning, prudence 
 and piety, that the then Parliament and Convocation both chose 
 enjoined and entrusted him to be the man to make a Catechism 
 for public use, such an one as should stand as a rule of faith and 
 manners to their posterity. The good old man, though he was 
 very learned, yet knowing that God leads us not to heaven 
 by many nor by hard questions, like an honest angler, made that 
 good, plain, unperplexed Catechism, which is j^i'inted with our 
 good old Service Book," 
 
 In the Bevision of 1603, upon the Hampton Court Conference, 
 the Church's full scheme for the instruction of children on the 
 Sacraments was finally settled, by the addition of the last part 
 of the Catechism. 
 
 The Commissioners, appointed after the Conference, when the 
 principle and subject-matter of the addition were decided upon, 
 would of course have before their eyes its previous contents ; and 
 those contents, as referred to in the Baptismal Exhortation, — 
 
 (1) Pt. I. ch. I. 
 D
 
 26 
 
 partly, specifically by name, under " the solemn promise, tlie Creed, 
 Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments," partly, under the general 
 
 covering or saving clause " may learn all other things which 
 
 a Christian ought to know and believe to his souVs health." The 
 general amending work was to provide that things which ought 
 to be known and believed to the soul's health, but which were not 
 yet " expressed " in the Catechism, should be " there expressed." 
 And such things, wheii expressed, would have a natural and 
 necessary connexion with the Baptismal Exhortation. Now the 
 special addition was further " explanation " of the Sacraments. 
 It seems, therefore, a moral and even logical conclusion to draw, 
 that the covering sentence, " all other things " &c. pointedly noiu 
 refers to and covers this additional sacramental teaching ; just 
 as it did refer to and cover instruction already expressed there, 
 and would refer to and cover additions hereafter, ^i) 
 
 The addition was the handiwork of Dean Overall ; and he would 
 seem to have had before him, in its composition, Nowell's smallest 
 Catechism. For his twelve questions and answers follow the very 
 method and course of Nowell's Si^een ; being to some extent 
 translations with compressions and additions, and omissions 
 specially on Tr an substantiation and Sacrifice. And this relation- 
 ship between the two Catechisms forms a significant link in the 
 extension of the fuller sacramental teaching for scholars in Gram- 
 mar Schools to the children to be taught and catechised in Church. 
 
 Now this extension was the natural outcome of the increase in 
 general intelligence, readers, and books. Manuals of Religious 
 Instruction, like the Catechism, could now be intelligently enlarged 
 with corresponding profit to teacher and scholar. (~) The standard 
 could be raised. It needed extension in more explanatory teach- 
 ing on the Sacraments. Therefore the religious instruction and 
 education of children, generally, so as to embrace all classes, was 
 hroadened on its sacramental basis. So the Canons of 1604 
 
 (1) The diametrically contradictory view of the clause is maintained by Canon 
 Melville. " But one thing clearly does not come under it, and that is the definite 
 sacramental teaching of the second part of the Catechism." Guardian, July 19. 
 
 (2) This feeling is strongly evidenced by the suggestion by Dr. Reinolds, 
 the leading representative of the Puritans, at the H. Court Conference, for an 
 enlarged Catechism. " He complained that the Catechism in the Common 
 Prayer Book was too brief; for which one by Master Nowell, late Dean of 
 Paul's, was added, and that too long for young novices to learn by heart : 
 requested, therefore, that one uniform Catechism might be made, which, and 
 none other, might be generally received ; it was demanded of him, whether, if 
 to the short Catechism in the Communion Book something were added for the 
 doctrine of the Sacrament, it would not serve .^ " &c. Caudwell, page 187.
 
 27 
 
 gathered up, represented, and enforced, in practical English 
 fashion, the awakened religious educational spirit of the day, 
 when the 79th enjoined " all schoolmasters to teach the larger or 
 shorter Catechism," and the 69th enjoined "Ministers to catechise," 
 to " instruct " not simply in Belief, Lord's Prayer, and Command- 
 ments, but also in " the Catechism of the Book of Common 
 Prayer." 
 
 Thus enlarged it has remained intact, with the exception of a 
 variation in one answer on sureties and the insertion of the word 
 " of " before " the benefits " in another, at the last Revision in 
 1G62, for 270 years, to this very hour. 
 
 This method of religious instruction by Catechisms, — from 
 the short " good plain unperplexed " one " of our good old 
 Service Book " up to the copious theological Scripture-illustrated 
 " larger" one of the Canons, — must have had a strong influence 
 on the religious character and bent of those youths who passed 
 through the Grammar Schools and Universities of England, in 
 the last quarter of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th. 
 It were no bold assertion to make, that the theological knowledge 
 and staunch loyalty to the Church, shewn by so many of her 
 Divines and Defenders, during that period, were due in some 
 measure to the intelligent teaching and intellectual training in 
 the knowledge of her doctrines and discipline and of Christian 
 duty, which they had thus received. 
 
 At the crowning Revision, then, in 1604, the Church's Cate- 
 chism, her Catechetical School of primary elementary instruction 
 and training, so to say, was completed and covered in ; built up 
 from foundation to roof on the Sacramental idea and plan. 
 There are housed Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments, as 
 its own proper tenants within their own proper home. 
 
 The reformed Anglo-Catholic Church, then, has maintained 
 and developed during more than 300 years two great principles ; 
 (1) the first, that Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments 
 should be taught and learnt individually by her children in con- 
 nexion with their Baptism, that is, on a Sacmmentcd basis ; (2) 
 the second, flowing out of the first, that such teaching and learn- 
 ing should be catechetical, w4th authorized explanations, that is, 
 on an inteUlrjent basis. She would then be untrue to her con- 
 stitutional principles and past unvarying practice, were she to 
 propound or accept, as a basis of common united Christian 
 teachiiig, Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments isolated
 
 28 
 
 from the fact or condition of Baptism in tlie past, present, and 
 future of her scholars ; in the past of a scholar, as a baptised 
 child ; in his present, as a baptised child to be confirmed ; in his 
 future, as a child if unbaptised to be brought to Baptism and 
 Confirmation. 
 
 She would lag, further, behind the spirit of the day, which 
 is striving for the wholesome development of the intelligence 
 of the young, were she to consent to the bare naked teaching of 
 Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments without explanation. 
 To do so, indeed, would be to reverse that educational policy in 
 religious instruction, which she has hitherto been the foremost to 
 maintain ' so worthily in both religious and secular instruction ; 
 the policy, namely, of raising the standards of instruction, 
 widening the range of subjects, and thereby elevating the general 
 average of the people mentally, morally, and spiritually. 
 
 She would be wanting, too, in faith in her Divine office and 
 proper Mission, in duty as the evangelical Teacher and Pastor of 
 her children, in due self-respect and self-consistency, were she to 
 accept explanations, other than or in place of her own authorised 
 ones in the Catechism, as the text or ground-work for teacher 
 and scholar. 
 
 Continuity in these three points — sacramental grounding, intel- 
 ligent teaching, explanation developed by herself — has been her 
 special note hitherto, as the history and structure of the Catechism 
 shew. "Were she to teach Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Command- 
 ments without the starting point of Baptism, where would the 
 Sacramental grounding be ? "Were she to teach them without 
 explanation, she would so far abandon that precious principle 
 which ties her Catechism through and through, coupling intelli- 
 gence and life with faith, enlightenment with obedience, under- 
 standing with prayer. Were she to leave the textual ground-work 
 of explanation to others, she would lay aside one of her own 
 essential functions in some measure, sealing up one of her natural 
 founts of instruction in Christian duty and sound doctrine. 
 
 A painful sore and discord might break out in a Diocese, which, 
 with well-meaning purpose setting the sail to catch the gale of 
 some fair-blowing expediency, should in these points alter the 
 course of her ark, and break with the past. 
 
 The watchword of the action of the English Church surely 
 sliould he, as it has heen so strenuously hitherto, with no uncertain 
 sound, as to the lorinciples on which to train her young, 
 "Vestigia nulla retrorsum."