Two Dissertations · §168 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Patrum: Ambrose — suffered for all, specially for the Church

4. Ambrose supplies a fourth witness: And Christ suffered for all, yet for us he suffered specially, because he suffered for the Church. So she who received more doubtless owes more (On Luke, book 6, chapter 7). On Ambrose's reading, the suffering Christ had a special regard for his Church, and from that she drew a special fruit of the passion. He can say Christ suffered for all, and still hold that the will and intention of the suffering Christ does not regard everyone alike, but turns in a singular way upon his mystical body — the Church of the firstborn — which he meant by his blood to make his own and by the Spirit to join to a share in eternal life that cannot fail. He did not suffer for all under that special intention.

Latin

4. Quartum testimonium ex Ambrosio peti potest, cujus haec sunt verba, Et Christus passus est pro omnibus, pro nobis tamen specialiter passus est, quia pro Ecclesia passus est. Itaque non est dubium quod plus debeat quae plus accepit, lib. 6. cap. 7. Lucae. Hic videmus ex mente Ambrosii fuisse specialem Christi patientis ad Ecclesiam suam intuitum, unde factum est ut ea ex passione Christi specialem fructum perceperit. Ita igitur Christum pro omnibus passum asserit, ut tamen voluntas & intentio Christi patientis haud omnes ex aequo respiciat, sed singulari quodam modo feratur in corpus suum mysticum, id est, primogenitorum Ecclesiam, quam sanguine suo voluit sibi acquirere, Spiritu conjungere ad infrustrabilem vitae aeternae participationem. Non passus est pro omnibus speciali hac intentione.

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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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