Quest. LXXXVIII. Is it lawful to kneel when the decalogue is read?

Answ. 1. If I lived in a church that mistook the commandments for prayers, as many ignorant people do, I would not so harden them in that error. 2. And if I knew that many of the people present are of that mind, I had rather do nothing that might scandalize or harden them in it.

But, 1. That the thing in itself is lawful, is past doubt: as we may kneel to the king when we hear him or speak to him; so it is lawful to kneel to God, when we read a chapter or hear it read, and specially the decalogue so terribly delivered, and written by his own finger in stone. 2. And if it be peremptorily commanded, and the omission would be offensive, I would use it though mistaking persons are present, (1.) Because I cannot disobey, and also differ from the whole assembly, without a greater hurt and scandal, than seeming to harden that mistaking person. (2.) And because I could and would by other means remove that person’s danger, as from me, by making him know that it is no prayer. (3.) And the rather in our times, because we can get the minister in the pulpit publicly to tell the people the contrary. (4.) And in catechising it is his appointed duty so to do. (5.) And we find that the same old silly people who took the commandments for a prayer, took the creed to be so too; when yet none kneeled at the creed; by which it appeareth that it is not kneeling which deceived them.