Two Dissertations · §147 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 objection (Grevinchovius) and reply: tacit promise of faith to the elect

If someone objects with Grevinchovius that there was no absolute promise or will of God to redeem any particular persons efficaciously, but that God willed and refused the application of Christ’s death to each and all only conditionally—willing it for all if faith intervened, refusing it if unbelief mediated—and that therefore, even when Christ laid down his life, his death might be applied to no one, and he might be cheated of the promised seed by everyone’s intervening unbelief: the reply is that in this promise by which the Father as it were bound himself to the Mediator to give him seed if he put his soul for sin, there is contained a tacit promise of faith to be given to the elect themselves; without that faith they would not be Christ’s seed. So it was as much decreed that God, because of the Son’s death, give faith itself to some, as that he give the Son an everlasting offspring. Christ, foreknowing this promise and counsel, could not but offer the sacrifice of his death to the Father with special intention for this seed, for these future believers. So far we have argued from express Scripture testimonies; next we will add some reasons also grounded in holy Scripture.

Latin

Si quis hic objiciat cum Grevinchovio, non fuisse absolutam aliquam promissionem aut voluntatem Dei de singularibus quibuscunque personis efficaciter redimendis, sed Deum applicationem mortis Christi omnibus & singulis non absolute sed conditionate voluisse & noluisse: voluisse omnibus, fide intercedente; noluisse, mediante incredulitate: atque idcirco, Christo ponente animam suam, potuisse tamen mortem ejus nullis applicari, id est, potuisse eum promissor semine fraudari, propter intervenientem omnium incredulitatem: Respondetur, In hac promissione qua se Mediatori Deus Pater quasi obstrinxit, de dando illi semine, si animam suam posuerit pro peccato, continetur tacita promissio de fide danda ipsis electis; absque qua semen Christi non haberentur. Tam igitur decretum fuit Deo propter mortem Filii dare aliquibus ipsam fidem, quam dare Filio progeniem in aeternum victuram. Hujus promissi & consilii praescius Christus non potuit non speciali intentione pro hoc semine, pro hisce fidelibus futuris, mortis suae sacrificium Deo Patri offerre. Hactenus expressis Scripturarum testimoniis pugnavimus: jam rationes aliquot in sacris etiam Scripturis fundatas afferemus.

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John Davenant argues from Scripture that Christ's death is a remedy offered to every person, so that anyone who hears the Gospel may be called to believe, and then opens a second dissertation on predestination.

John Davenant (1572–1641) was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, bishop of Salisbury from 1621, and England's leading delegate to the Synod of Dort. A Reformed theologian of the moderate school, he defended universal atonement language within a Calvinist frame.

The Two Dissertations (1650) press two theses: that Christ died sufficiently for all, and that God sincerely calls all who hear the gospel — against the novel claim that Christ died only for the elect in every sense. They are Davenant's mature statement of the hypothetical-universalist position that divided English Calvinists.

This volume covers the opening of the first dissertation through the close of chapter 3, with the theses on the extent of Christ's death.

Date1572–1641 AD (Bishop of Salisbury; 1650 Cambridge imprint)

The 1683 reprint was not used as base text. No modern English was copied.

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