4 - Community and political power

Summary

Lawson's discussion of the concept of community per se is couched in the terminology of secular society and politics; thus the received vocabulary of politics constitutes an area of metaphorical expansion for Lawson's ecclesiology. The community itself is provisionally styled a ‘common or public society of Men’ (Pol. 13). Above all, it is a society immediately capable of political form (ibid.). This identification is authenticated by reference to Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine and Forsterus (Johann Forster? 1495-1556) for Hebrew etymology. This social matter awaiting only the political form presupposes language, religion and a diversity of established custom and social sub-groupings. The ecclesiological analogue is identified in similar terms. It is an association of Christian believers ready to receive the form of organised office and discipline which defines a particular visible church (Pol. 35, 44). Moreover, it is no mere family or congregation (Pol. 32–5), but, like its secular analogue, ‘an association joined as one’, capable of unity of concerted action (Pol. 16). Thus, analogically, it is one made of many members, ‘as in an organical body’ (cf. Exam. 21); and (the analogy is tightened to a metaphor) it is ‘one person morally conceived’ (Pol. 16; Exam. 30). Ecclesiologically it is ‘morally one Person spiritual: and as such, may act and do many things … they receive a Power and Ability to act as one Person for the special good of themselves’ (Pol. 34).