The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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Whether or not Maurice is the consistent representativist I long took him to be continues to be a question for me. One reason for this is a passage such as the following about "the constitution for man as man":

We teach [children] out of the Catechism, that they are children of God, members of Christ, heirs of the kingdom of heaven. We expound to them what we believe to be that universal constitution for man as man. We believe that we are admitted by baptism into this constitution, and laid under obligation of making it known to other men as intended also for them. We believe that a man not understanding this constitution, attempting to set up a separate individual life, does divest himself of his glory as a man, does not fulfill the duties of a man. We believe that the man, who, receiving the good news that there is this constitution, and renouncing and repenting of the selfish life he has led, living as if he were personally related to the head of the polity, rejoicing to think that he is so (because he is a man, and not because he is any particular man,) does rise to a feeling of personal distinctness which he can never get in any other way, and which is so essential to his being, that all moral or spiritual cultivation without it is impossible (The Kingdom of Heaven: 45 f.).

Clearly, it is one thing to be constituted a child of God, a member of Christ, etc. from all eternity; it is something else again to be"admitted" to this constitution by baptism. Similarly, it is one thing for this constitution to be always already the constitution of other men because they are men; it is another thing for it to be only "intended" for them. (Of course, Maurice's "admitted" might be meant in something like the same sense as Robertson's "made," even as what he means is "intended" for men might not be their constitution, which is always already theirs, but simply their baptism, as "the simplest and fullest witness of a redemption which covers and comprehends those who are not baptized" ["The Revision of the Prayer Book and the Act of Uniformity, " Macmillan's Magazine, April 1860: 424].) 

On the other hand, Maurice can respond to the question, What do we tell all men? by saying: "We tell all men, those who are most incredulous of our message, most hostile to it, that this Name is about them, that they are living, moving, having their being in it. They do not acquire this privilege by baptism; we baptize them because they have it" (Conflict of Good and Evil: 179). 

And so my question remains.

25 May 2009

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