Two Dissertations · §176 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Cajetan on Romans 8 — special donation to the elect

6. Cajetan on Romans 8: He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things? Paul saw that the earlier chain of gifts did not yet prove effectually that God works all things for the elect's good — only that he works with them unto good. So, to conclude ALL THINGS effectually, he added that God freely gave even the Son for the elect, and from that inferred that with the Son all things are given to them. Cajetan's words cannot be bent to a universal gift of Christ given equally to the whole world: if that were so, God would give all things equally to every human being — which is plainly false. A special donation must be granted, under which Christ is given to the elect alone, and which alone carries after it an infallible, most certain gift of everything needed for salvation.

Latin

6. Cajetanus, in Rom. viii. explicans haec verba, Qui proprio Filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus eum tradidit, quomodo non cum illo omnia nobis donabit? sic scribit, Animadverterat Paulus, quod praeallegata ratio tot donorum non efficaciter inferebat Deum omnia in bonum electis cooperari, sed Deum illis cooperari in bonum, & propterea ut efficaciter concluderet quod OMNIA, adjinxit, quod Deus liberaliter donavit etiam Filium pro electis, ut hinc inferret quod omnia cum Filio electis donata sunt. Non possunt haec dicta Cajetani ad illam universalem Christi donationem accommodari, qua toti mundo datus ex aequo intelligitur: nam hoc posito, Deus omnia omnibus hominibus ex aequo daret: quod manifeste falsum est. Specialis ergo quaedam donatio necessario concedenda est, juxta quam Christus solis electis datus intelligatur, & quae sola trahat post se infallibilem & certissimam donationem omnium rerum ad salutem necessariarum.

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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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