05 July 2020

The Douai Catechism, 1649 - CHAPTER VIII. OF THE COMMANDMENTS IN PARTICULAR. The Third Commandment Expounded.

The Third Commandment Expounded.
   
Q. WHAT is the third commandment?
    A. Remember that thou keepest holy the sabbath day.
   
Q. When did the Sabbath begin to be kept?
    A. From the very creation of the world; for then God blessed the seventh day, and rested on it from all His works. Gen. ii. 2.
    
Q. When was this commandment renewed?
    A. In the Old Law; when God gave the commandments to Moses on mount Sinai, written with His own finger in two tables of stone, Exod. xx. 1, &c. xxxi. 18.
    
Q. Why was the Jewish Sabbath changed into the Sunday?
    A. Because Christ was born upon a Sunday, arose from the dead upon a Sunday, and sent down the Holy Ghost on a Sunday: works not inferior to the creation of the world.
    
Q. By whom was it changed?
    A. By the Governors of the Church, the Apostles, who also kept it; for St. John was in spirit on the Lord's day (which was Sunday.) Apoc. i. 10.
    
Q. How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holydays?
    A. By the very act of changing the sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.
    
Q. How prove you that?
    A. Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.
    
Q. What other proof have you?
    A. Out of John x. 22, where we read that Christ himself was present, and kept the Dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, a feast ordained by Judas Maccabæus, 1 Macc. iv. 59.
    And out of Acts ii. 1, 4, where the Apostles, keeping the feast of Pentecost, "were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Neither do Protestants as yet differ from this, though some have lately prohibited and profaned both it and the holy feast of the Resurrection, and all the other feasts of the Church.
    
Q. What commandment have you from God for obedience to the Church in things of this nature?
    A. Out of Acts xv. 41, where we read that "St. Paul went about confirming the Churches, and commanding them to keep the precepts of the Apostles and the ancients." And out of Luke x. 16, "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you (the Church) despiseth me."
    
Q. May temporal princes and the laity make a holy day?
    A. With consent and approbation of the Church, they may, otherwise not; because this is an act of spiritual jurisdiction.
    
Q. For what end doth the Church ordain holydays?
    A. For the increase of piety, and the memory of special benefits received from God.
    
Q. If keeping the Sunday be a church precept, why is it numbered in the decalogue, which are the Commandments of God, and the Law of Nature?
    A. Because the substance or chief part of it, namely Divine Right, and the Law of Nature; though the determinating this particular day, Sunday rather than Saturday, be a Church ordinance and precept.
    
Q. Did not Christ, when he confirmed the rest, confirm also this commandment?
    
A. In as much as it belongeth to the law of nature, he did: but not as it belonged to the ceremonial law of the Jews, and was affixed to Saturday, therefore, now we are not bound to keep Saturday.
    
Q. Why so, I pray you?
    A. Because that particular day was a command of the ceremonial law of the Jews, which was abrogated, and ceased to oblige after the death of Christ.
    
Q. To what are we obliged by this precept?
    A. To spend Sunday in prayer and divine service.
    
Q. What is the best means to sanctify the Sunday?
    A. By hearing mass, confessing our sins, communicating, hearing sermons, and reading good books.
    
Q. What is forbidden by this precept?
    A. All profane employments, and servile labours, excepting such as are of necessity, as dressing meat, serving cattle, &c. or such as appertain to piety and works of mercy.
    
Q. Who break this commandment?
    A. Such as without necessity spend any considerable part of the Sunday in servile labours.
    
Q. How else is the Sunday profaned?
    A. By spending all the morning slothfully in bed, or vainly dressing ourselves; by missing divine service when we may hear it, or spending a part of the day in drinking, gaming, dancing, or the like.
    
Q. Is there any thing now in this first table of the law impossible to be observed?
    A. No certainly; for nothing can be more easy and delightful to the true servant of God, than the things that are here commanded.
    
Q. Why do you now divide the table of Moral law into three and seven, whereas anciently some Fathers assigned four to the first table, and six to the last?
    A. Concerning the manner of limiting the number of commandments to each table, the scripture says nothing, not so much as which is the third, which is the fourth commandment, and therefore it is in itself indifferent: St. Jerome divides them into four and six, which is no where condemned, St. Augustine into three and seven, who is more generally followed; but indeed the matter is of no great importance how we reckon them so we retain them in our books, and keep them in our lives.
    
Q. But what reason can justify the omission of so great a part of the text, when we transcribe the commandments into our catechisms?
    A. Such books being composed principally for the unlearned, are by the pastors of the church abridged into the shortest and easiest method they can, prudently condescending to the weak memories and low capacities of the people: nor can the church be accused of the least shadow of corrupting or omitting any part of the commandments, or of God's word; since in no Catholic Bible is there one syllable left out; and whether the first commandment, after this account, be divided, and the two last united, or contrariwise the last divided and the first united, is not at all material, the whole ten commandments being entirely contained in both, or either way.

Next - The Douai Catechism, 1649 - CHAPTER VIII. OF THE COMMANDMENTS IN PARTICULAR.  THE SECOND TABLE OF THE LAW. The Fourth Commandment Expounded.

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