Christianity, natural law, and magistracy: De Iure Belli and the Sermon on the Mount

One of the central themes of De iure belli ac pacis (IBP) is the relationship between natural law and the law of Christ. Grotius’s position here was shaped in important ways by his project of Biblical annotation, especially his work on Matthew 5 (the Sermon on the Mount) where Jesus discusses punishment and resistance. Though published only in 1641, Grotius’s annotations circulated in the early 1620s as part of a wider debate on the legitimacy of magistracy, and – as Grotius was aware – they were used to defend very different positions. This article indicates the wider contours of that debate among the exiled Remonstrant community and argues that we should see IBP as, at least in part, a contribution to it. The legacy of that debate would shape later writing and the article ends with a ‘post-Grotian’ Remonstrant account of the relationship between natural law and Christianity.