Lawson: Politica sacra et civilis

by George Lawson , Edited by Conal Condren

• ISBN13: 9780521543415
• ISBN10: 052154341X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Lawson's Politica is a systematic treatise on politics in church and state, and is arguably the most significant work of political theory to have been printed during the Restoration crisis of 1659-60. The work was widely discussed during the seventeenth century and its conceptual vocabulary applied in discussions of the Revolution of 1688-9, when it was also posthumously republished. Despite Lawson's fame, however, his work fell into relative obscurity during the eighteenth century but it has recently been the subject of renewed scholarly interest. Politica has been reassessed as both historically and theoretically significant, and Lawson's contextual and interpretative importance emphasised, as a writer who enriches our understanding of Hobbes and Locke. This new modern edition is the first to be based on, and to correct, the rare and badly printed edition of 1660 and the partially corrected edition of 1689. Containing full scholarly apparatus, it is designed to make this significant work accessible to students as well as specialists through a substantial introduction and notes, contextual material and bibliographical guide.

Table of Contents

Preface

Editor's introduction

A note on the text

Bibliographical guide

Principal dates

Epistle to the reader

Dedicatory poem

The arguments of the several chapters

1. Of government in general, and the original thereof

2. Of government in general, and of a community civil

3. Of an ecclesiastical community

4. Of a commonwealth in general, and power civil

5. Of the manner how civil power is acquired

6. Of power ecclesiastical

7. Of the manner of acquiring ecclesiastical power

8. Of the disposition of power civil, and the several forms of government

9. Of the disposition of ecclesiastical power: and first, whether it be due unto the Bishop of Rome

10. Whether the civil state have any good title to the Power of the Keys

11. Whether episcopacy be the primary subject of the Power of the Keys

12. Whether presbytery or presbyters be the primary subject of the Power of the Keys

13. That the government of the church is not purely democratical, but like that of a free state, wherein the power is in the whole, not in any part, which is the author's judgement

14. Of the extent of a particular church

15. Of subjection in general, and the subjects of a civil state

16. Of subjects in an ecclesiastical polity

Biographical notes

Index.