Two Dissertations · §166 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Patrum: Augustine Serm. 56 — came to redeem the predestined

2. Closely related is Sermon 56 On the Lord's words (t gathered. Still, he who had predestined them knew them, and he who had come to redeem them with his blood knew them. He saw them while they did not yet see him; he knew them while they did not yet believe in him. Nothing is clearer: Christ came into the world to redeem the predestined by his blood — and to redeem them efficaciously and infallibly as people to be brought through to share eternal life. He never resolved with himself to redeem the those not chosen in that way.

Latin

2. Huic affine est illud alterum, Serm. 56. De verbis Domini, pag. 194. tom. 10. Erant praedestinati nondum congregati. Hos tamen noverat qui praedestinaverat, noverat qui redimere sanguine suo venerat. Videbat eos nondum videntes eum; noverat eos nondum credentes in eum. Quid apertius quam Christum venisse in mundum ut praedestinatos sanguine suo redimeret, atque redimeret efficaciter & infallibiliter ad participationem vitae aeternae perducendos; quo modo nunquam apud se decrevit redimere non-electos.

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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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