Two Dissertations · §156 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Quartum Rat. 8: fruitful application proves antecedent intention—Phil 2:13 / John 15:5

Ratio 8. The event shows that some people really and efficaciously apply Christ’s death, with its infinite merit, to themselves for salvation. Was that application made according to Christ’s antecedent, efficacious intention in offering himself on the cross—or against it, or without it preceding? If they grant in the dying Christ an antecedent special will for this efficacious application that falls to all the elect and to them alone, we have what we aim to prove: that by God’s and Christ’s special intention this death is destined for the elect as to be applied efficaciously. No one will say a person can apply Christ’s death to himself efficaciously against Christ’s intention. The only remaining claim is that people make the application efficacious by free will without any preceding special, efficacious intention of the divine will. Piety forbids that. First, in good and saving acts God’s efficacious will stands before the human: “It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish” (Phil. 2:13), and he works nothing in us antecedently that he did not antecedently decree to work. Second, in works that belong to salvation we can do nothing without Christ: “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). What we can do through Christ we receive power to do because of Christ’s merit—which, without the dying and meriting Christ’s antecedent special intention, is assigned to no one. So whoever has obtained this excellent grace and already applied Christ’s merit to himself efficaciously must confess he received that applying faculty above others from the special kindness of God and of Christ, who specially intended, destined, and applied his merit to him. The fruitful application in the predestinate itself shows that in Christ offering himself, and in God accepting the sacrifice, there was a special efficacious intention of that application for the predestinate. And that is the singular privilege of the elect in Christ’s death this thesis aims to establish.

Latin

Rat. 8. Certum est ex eventu, quosdam homines mortem Christi cum infinito ejusdem merito realiter & efficaciter ad salutem sibi applicare. Quaero igitur utrum haec applicatio facta sit secundum antecedaneam & efficacem intentionem Christi in cruce seipsum offerentis, an contra eandem, sive absque eadem praecedente. Si concesserint in Christo moriente antecedaneam & specialem voluntatem de hac efficaci applicatione quae omnibus electis, & solis electis contingit, habemus id ipsum quod evincere conamur, nempe hanc mortem ex speciali intentione Dei & Christi electis ut efficaciter applicandam destinari. Jam vero, contra Christi intentionem posse ullum hominem mortem ejus sibi efficaciter applicare, nemo dixerit. Id unum reliquum est, ut dicant fieri hanc applicationem efficacem ab iisdem hominibus pro libertate suae voluntatis absque praecedente ulla speciali & efficaci intentione Divinae voluntatis. At pietas vetat hoc asserere: Primo, quia in actibus bonis & salutiferis efficax Dei voluntas se habet antecedenter ad efficacem voluntatem humanam. Deus enim est qui in nobis operatur & velle & perficere, Phil. ii. 13. nec quicquam operatur in nobis antecedenter, quod non antecedenter decrevit operari. Secundo, quia in operibus hisce ad salutem pertinentibus nihil possumus sine Christo: Ioann. xv. 5. Sine me nihil potestis facere. At quod possumus per Christum, ejus rei faciundae potestatem accipimus propter Christi meritum: quod absque antecedanea & speciali intentione Christi morientis & merentis nemini assignatur. Quicunque igitur eximiam hanc gratiam obtinuit, meritum Christi sibi jam efficaciter applicaverit, fateri debet, se hanc ipsam applicandi facultatem prae aliis accepisse a speciali benignitate Dei Christique hoc suum meritum specialiter illi intendentis, destinantis, applicantis. Sic ipse eventus fructuosae applicationis in praedestinatis demonstrat fuisse in Christo offerente seipsum, & Deo acceptante hoc sacrificium, specialem & efficacem intentionem ejusdem applicationis quoad praedestinatos. Atque hoc est illud ipsum singulare privilegium electorum in morte Christi quod hac thesi nostra conamur stabilire.

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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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