The Reformation of the Decalogue

This monograph by Jonathan Willis is outstanding in a number of ways. There is the variety of materials identified, including scores of neglected theological treatises, assize sermons, polyphonic settings of the Decalogue and commandment boards and related visual aids in church and home. There is the range of the themes tackled and the new insights offered on each one, not just the meaning and significance of each commandment, but everything from royal authority to antinomianism, perfectionism and rural pelagianism. There is the skill exhibited in teasing out theological and pastoral conundrums, and the balanced judgement demonstrated in trying to reconcile the increasingly complex expositions composed by the well-educated elite with the possible reactions of the less well-educated majority. And there is the masterly integration of primary materials and recent interpretations in a complex framework that encompasses two scenarios and three functions of the Law. The scenarios explore two sides of the same coin: how the Ten Commandments were changed by the English Reformation, and how that Reformation was shaped by the transformation of the Decalogue. The first of these describes not just the culmination of the process of replacing the Seven Deadly Sins by the Ten Commandments as the basis of Christian ethics, as John Bossy demonstrated many years ago. It also comprises the ‘repurposing’, ‘reinterpreting’ and even ‘reinventing’ of the Decalogue, to the extent (the author enthusiastically asserts) that it was ‘almost unrecognizable’ by the end of the long sixteenth century (p. 352). The second scenario is more complex and more nuanced (as well as more difficult to prove), but was of greater significance, it is argued, in that it helped shape the course of religious change in profound and lasting ways. The three functions of the Law, which provide the central chapters of the book, were those asserted by Luther and Calvin and echoed by Bishop Hooper in 1548. First, there was the civil function: to regulate the externals of religious worship and ensure the basics of an orderly commonwealth. Here, the Decalogue was used to bolster the authority and legitimacy of governors, and magistrates constrained themselves to act within the boundaries of Decalogue discourse. Secondly, there was the theological, evangelical function: the Law required perfect spiritual obedience from fallen mankind, but while condemning the reprobate to hell for their sins, it convinced the elect of their total incapacity to keep the Law, and drove them to repentance and faith through God’s justifying grace. Thirdly, there was the practical, pastoral use: as an increasingly detailed guide to godly living, not in the hope of meriting salvation, but of performing good works as the consequence of faith. With the spread of double predestinarian teaching, and the evolution of a ‘Puritan penitential cycle’, the Commandments ‘became a tool by which the godly in particular tried and tested their peculiar brand of experimental Calvinism ... as part of their quest for assurance of divine favour and sanctification’ (p. 367). But a great many ordinary people, suggests Willis, found the ‘counter-intuitive theology of double predestination’ a hard sell (p. 351). He also argues that the survival of a gut feeling among the laity that God would reward good behaviour was in part due to the cautious, conservative way in which media such as the official liturgy, musical settings, and visual aids presented the Decalogue, which cut the laity off from the learned theological nuances which comprise the great bulk of this book

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