The Divine Feudal Law: Or, Covenants with Mankind, Represented. Samuel Pufendorf
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of men. For this “were to make the Christian Religion altogether Irrational” (p. 22). In theology as elsewhere, where there is a contradiction between two propositions, one or the other must be false. To bring about reconciliation, “one Opinion must of necessity be declar’d and approv’d for Truth, and the other be rejected as false” (p. 21). Pufendorf is convinced that the truths of Christianity can be established on the basis of the Holy Scriptures. However, because of the obstinacy of prejudices and of “the Pride of Humane Nature, which disdains that others should seem wiser than ourselves” (p. 22), reconciliation cannot be obtained on all points of dispute. Thus he proposes, “a Reconcilement mixed with a Toleration” (p. 23). In the first place, agreement has to be established upon those articles of faith that are necessary to salvation. In the second place, toleration should be granted with regard to those opinions that do not belong to the foundations of faith.
This leads to the “grand Question” whether a disputed religious article belongs to the essentials of the faith or not (sec. 16). As Pufendorf observes, some religious parties extend the fundamentals further, while others bring them within stricter bounds. Moreover, not all parties view them in the same manner. Given such disagreement, Pufendorf proposes to take those principles on which both sides agree and “to compose of them a full and compleat System of Theology, which … should hold together, in a well connected Series of those Principles, from End to End” (p. 59). This “System, or Body of Divinity” (p. 59), has to contain everything that a complete Christian should know, and it must therefore “include all the Articles which would make up the whole due Chain of the Faith” (p. 59). As Pufendorf explained in a letter to his brother Esaias in 1681, he wished to develop theology according to the mathematical method that he had already applied in the domain of natural law.4
The bulk of The Divine Feudal Law contains the theological system on which Pufendorf wished to base reconciliation of the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches. In the first place, “a rude Draught” (p. 127) of the required system of theology is established. It consists of a series of covenants between God and men that Pufendorf uncovers in the Holy Scriptures: The first covenant, concluded with Adam in the state of Paradise, was broken with the Fall. Out of goodness, God established a new covenant with man by the interposition of a mediator. From this a new religion arose that consisted “in the observance of the Law of Nature, both towards God, and towards Man” (p. 78). Because of man’s corruption after the Fall, faith and hope in the savior were added. This new covenant was announced by a number of particular covenants (one with Abraham, one with Moses), which testify to God’s concern that the knowledge of a savior to come into the world might be lost among dispersed nations. According to Pufendorf, the new covenant consists of a double agreement: “the one of God the Father with the Son, the other of the Son, as Mediator, and Saviour with Men” (p. 87). Its proper understanding depends on explication of the Trinity and the double nature of Christ as God and as man.
The draft of the theological system is followed by a series of paragraphs devoted to the main points of controversy between Lutherans and Calvinists. The most important issues concern the questions of grace and predestination. They are treated separately because they cannot be integrated into the proposed system. In Pufendorf’s judgment, it is “to imply a Contradiction that a Covenant should be made by God with Men, and yet that they should be sav’d or damn’d by virtue of a certain absolute Decree,” by which God decides beforehand about the salvation of men (p. 127). If theology is taken to be a “Moral Discipline,” at least a minimum of freedom of will has to be admitted: “this at least must be left to our Will, that it can resist and refuse the offer’d Grace of God [by the covenants]; since without this all Morality would be utterly extinguish’d, and Men must be drawn to their End after the manner of working of Engines” (p. 145).
The main part of the work concludes with a detailed examination of a proposal to reunite the Protestants that was launched from the Calvinist side. In 1687 Pierre Jurieu (1637–1713)5 published his De Pace inter Protestantes ineunda (Consultation about Making Peace among Protestants). As Pufendorf observes, the work fell into his hands while he was composing The Divine Feudal Law. In fact, he takes Jurieu’s paper as an opportunity to explain in greater detail why “the Opinion of the Reform’d upon the Article of Grace and Predestination” (p. 157) seems unacceptable to him (secs. 70–89), as well as to discuss the four ways of reconciling and uniting divided parties that Jurieu proposed (secs. 90–94).
IV
As noted above, Pufendorf’s proposal for reconciling different religious parties is restricted to the union of just two parties; namely, the Lutherans and the Calvinists. We thus have to ask why Pufendorf did not propose a more comprehensive system of theology that might have served also to unite Protestants with Roman Catholics. This question is of special interest, because Pufendorf witnessed in his own time important attempts to reunite Protestants and Catholics in the German empire.6 From the early 1670s on, the Spanish Franciscan Cristoforo Rojas y Spinola, Bishop of Tina in Croatia and later of Wiener-Neustadt, acted as an agent of Emperor Leopold. As the emperor’s diplomat, Spinola toured various Protestant courts, where he expounded upon church unity and endeavored to stimulate discussion of ways to bring about a reunion between Protestants and the Catholic Church. His negotiation efforts were also supported by Pope Innocent XI. In Hanover, as early as 1679, Spinola negotiated secretly for four months with the Lutheran theologian Gerard Wolter Molanus (1633–1722), Abbot of Loccum. Like Spinola, Molanus was to play a crucial role in a second round of negotiations in 1683. A church “union conference” was convened with a number of Protestant theologians, to whom Spinola submitted his plan of reunion, a work entitled Regulae circa christianorum omnium ecclesiasticam reunionem (Rules concerning the Ecclesiastical Reunion of All Christians). On the instruction of Duke Ernst August of Hanover, Molanus drafted Methodus reducendae unionis ecclesiasticae inter Romanenses et Protestantes (Method to Restore an Ecclesiastical Union between the Romanists and the Protestants), in which he laid out the Protestant proposals for reunion. These were then examined in comparison with Spinola’s plan. Although a second conference round was convened in the same year, no agreement was reached. Later attempts to overcome the Roman Catholic and Protestant division proved equally abortive.
Another participant in the union conference was the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who repeatedly raised the issue of the reunification of Protestants and Catholics in his works and extensive correspondence. In the early 1690s Leibniz entered into correspondence on the subject with the leading French theologian Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux and privy councillor to Louis XIV, but he soon became disappointed with the discussion. Leibniz wrote a commentary to The Divine Feudal Law,7 and his sharp criticism of the work was a result of the contrasting philosophical and political perspectives of the two authors.8
With a view to The Divine Feudal Law, the “union conference” at Hanover is of particular significance insofar as Pufendorf takes a critical view of Molanus’s Methodus, which he cites in full in the preliminary sections of the work.9 Before discussing the text itself, Pufendorf explains in general terms the reasons why union between Protestants and Catholics is impossible. The main reason is that the controversies are concerned not with “principles” or “opinions” but rather with “the Establishment and Support of the Authority, Power and Revenues” (p. 28) of the Roman Catholic Church, which Pufendorf also calls the “Empire of the Pope” and the “Pontifical Monarchy.” Controversies about “emoluments” cannot be determined, because demonstration of the falsehood of the “Popish principles” would only confirm those of the Protestant party. As the pope will never renounce his pretense of dominion over others, reconciliation would require that Protestants return to subordination “under their former Yoke” (p. 29).
In his critical commentary on Molanus’s proposal, Pufendorf repeats the same arguments regarding reconciliation with Catholics in more polemical terms. Thus he expresses his conviction that “the far greater Part of the Protestants do believe the Papal Empire to be that Apocalyptical Beast, whose Tiranny by the great Favour of God they have thrown off” (p. 38). He also observes that the Catholic Church “is degenerated from its Primitive Purity … into a most pestilent Sink of Superstitions” (p. 39). Moreover, the proposed union with the Catholics is held to