Two Dissertations · §159 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Rat. 10: conditional-only merit leaves us no better off in Christ than in Adam

So if by his death Christ did not merit grace and life for anyone absolutely, but only for all alike under the uncertain condition that they choose to receive the offered grace, believe in him, and persevere in faith, leaving to each person's free choice whether to believe and persevere, then we would be no better off in Christ than we were in Adam. That is so as to how and how surely we obtain efficacious grace and eternal life.

Latin

Si ergo Christus morte sua non meruerit gratiam vitamque ullis hominibus absolute, sed omnibus promiscue sub hac incerta conditione, Si voluerint oblatam gratiam admittere, in ipsum credere, & in Fide perseverare, atque interim libero uniuscujusque arbitrio committat & relinquat, utrum velit credere, velit perseverare necne; profecto quod attinet ad ipsum modum & certitudinem obtinendae gratiae efficacis & vitae aeternae, nihilo meliore conditione uteremur in Christo, quam usi fuimus in Adamo.

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About this text

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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