Two Dissertations · §162 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Rat. 10 close: elect-only fruitful application by special decree via Christ’s merit

This grace, given for Christ's sake to the elect alone, and producing in them alone the fruitful application that saves, flows to them not from some special act of human choice but from a special decree of God's will, and that through Christ's merit. So Christ's merit was destined for those same persons in a special way by God, and applied by Christ himself.

Latin

Haec gratia quae datur propter Christum solis electis, quaeque in illis solis producit effectum fructuosae applicationis & salutis, non ex speciali aliqua operatione arbitrii humani, sed ex speciali decreto voluntatis Divinae ad eos dimanat, idque mediante merito Christi. Ergo Christi meritum fuit iisdem speciali quodam modo a Deo destinatum, ab ipso Christo applicatum.

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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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