Two Dissertations · §170 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Patrum: Fulgentius — special will and predestination in Christ

6. Fulgentius, On the Incarnation and grace of Jesus Christ 29 (Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. 6, p. 92): Those who treat God's will that all be saved as the same toward the redeemed and the damned — when asked why God wills all to be saved and yet not all are — what answer have they? Fulgentius implies that God by a special will decreed to procure, through Christ, the salvation of those who are in fact saved; and that their opponents have nothing solid left when pressed to explain why some are actually saved by Christ's death and others are not. He shows this difference cannot be reduced to a difference of human wills (chs. 30-31). 7. Another from the same Fulgentius, On the truth of Predestination, book 3: No Christian should doubt that those God predestined to the adoption of sons were predestined in Christ before the world's foundation not only to the reward of glory but to the grace of justification, and by that predestination's benefit called and justified according to purpose. Anyone who grants that God's elect sons were so predestined in Christ to grace and glory will freely admit that Christ's death and merit were ordained and accepted in a special way for those same elect, so that from them they might obtain without fail the grace and glory marked out for them.

Latin

6. Fulgentius, De Incarn. & grat. Jesu Chr. cap. 29. p. 92. Biblioth. Patr. tom. 6. Hi qui voluntatem Dei, qua omnes homines vult salvos fieri, aequalem circa redimendos & damnandos existimant, cum interrogati fuerint cur Deus velit omnes homines salvos fieri, nec tamen omnes salvi fiant, quid respondebunt? Innuit doctissimus Fulgentius, Deum speciali voluntate illorum salutem per Christum procurandam decrevisse qui de facto salvantur; eosque qui contrarium affirmant, nihil solidi habere quod respondeant, quando urgentur ut ostendant, unde hoc discrimen oriatur, quod quidam morte Christi reapse salvantur, alii non salvantur. Ad humanarum voluntatum discrimen hoc revocari non posse demonstrat. cap. 30. & 31. 7. Adjungo aliud testimonium ejusdem Fulgentii, lib. 3. De verit. Praedest. Quos Deus praedestinavit in adoptionem Filiorum, hos non solum ad praemium glorificationis sed ad gratiam justificationis ante mundi constitutionem in Christo praedestinatos, & hujus praedestinationis beneficio secundum propositum vocatos & justificatos, nullus debet ambigere Christianus. Qui non ambigit electos Dei filios fuisse in Christo tam ad gratiam, quam ad gloriam ante mundi constitutionem praedestinatos, ille ultro fatebitur, mortem meritumque Christi fuisse speciali quadam ratione pro eisdem electis ordinatum & acceptatum, ut inde possent hanc gratiam & gloriam sibi destinatam infallibiliter obtinere.

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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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