Originally published posthumously, in Latin, in1695, The Divine Feudal Law sets forthPufendorfs basis for the reunion of the Lutheran andCalvinist confessions. This attempt to seek aconciliation between the confessions complementsthe concept of toleration discussed in Of the Natureand Qualification of Religion in Reference to CivilSociety. In both works Pufendorf examines the properway to secure the peaceful coexistence of differentconfessions in a state.Although he argued in Of the Nature thatmaintaining peace and order in the state does notrequire all subjects to share one belief, Pufendorf alsobelieved that true Christianity was beneficial tosociety. For that reason he advocated a reunion of theconfessions on the basis of fundamental truths that hebelieved were contained in the Bible, saying aconciliation should be enforced not by law but bymutual agreement of the dissenting parties. Therefore,the reunion of the confessions must be accompaniedby toleration.Samuel Pufendorf (16321694) was one of the most important figures in early-modern political thought. An exact contemporary of Locke and Spinoza, he transformed the natural law theories of Grotius and Hobbes, developed striking ideas of toleration and of the relationship between church andstate, and wrote extensive political histories and analyses of the constitution of the German empire.

Theophilus Dorrington (16541715) was an Anglican clergyman and polemicist against Dissent.Simone Zurbuchen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.