The period of the Counter-Reformation and the religious wars was a testing time. Old and new religious values had to prove their power and effectiveness to the full. Protestantism was engaged in a life-and-death struggle. The security of its faith was reinforced by two great theological ideas. One was predestination, that ‘terrible decree’ which demanded faith; the other, underrated by everybody since Max Weber, was the glorious idea of the covenant of grace, conferring faith. The certainty of man's union with God soon made the idea of the covenant into the guiding principle of the age. The theological idea gave rise to a political idea which had close links with the doctrine that the state was founded upon a contract. This doctrine was taking shape at the time in the political maxims of the Calvinist opposition in France and England.

The notion that the political community, the state, came into existence through free agreement between the people and its rulers represents a stage on the road to democracy. No less important for the evolution of democracy was the idea of popular sovereignty – the idea that ultimate authority in the state resides with and derives from the people. Extensive studies have been devoted to the interplay of these ideas and their consequences. Again and again scholars have been drawn to the origins of our modern democratic systems.

Little attention has been paid, on the other hand, to the relation between the Judaeo-Christian idea of the Covenant made between God and man and the contractual theory of government, although over eighty-five years ago Georg Jellinek drew attention to the political implications of the religious covenant.