Two Dissertations · §173 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Aquinas — eternal ordination completed through Christ

2. Aquinas (ST III q.24 a.4): God preordained our salvation by eternally predestining that it be completed through Jesus Christ. He is speaking of the elect, and he holds that from eternity God ordained their salvation to be finished through Christ without fail. How then could Christ have matched that eternal ordination of his Father if, in his saving passion, he did not apply his merits in a peculiar way to effect and complete the elect's salvation without fail? So we must grant a special intention — God accepting this victim, Christ offering himself — restricted to the elect alone, so far as Christ's passion is joined to an infallible saving effect in particular persons.

Latin

2. Aquinas, part. 3. qu. 24. art. 4. Deus praeordinavit nostram salutem, ab aeterno praedestinando ut per Jesum Christum compleretur. Loquitur Aquinas de hominibus electis, atque asserit Deum ab aeterno ordinasse, ut eorum salus per Jesum Christum infallibiliter compleretur. Quaero igitur quomodo Christus huic aeternae ordinationi Patris sui sese conformem exhibuerit, si in passione sua salutifera ad electorum salutem infallibiliter efficiendam & complendam merita sua peculiari modo non applicaverit? Concedenda est itaque specialis intentio Dei hanc hostiam acceptantis, & Christi seipsum offerentis, restricta ad solos electos, quatenus passio Christi cum infallibili effectu salutis in singularibus personis conjungitur.

Report a mistake in this passage

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.

Printed text used

Also checked PDF of the 1650 (Latin · print facsimile)
Also checked DjVu machine-read text of the 1650 (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake