Two Dissertations · §187 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Contra Obj. 2: merits applied before faith?

Suppose the elect gain efficacious grace — saving faith — because Christ's death and merit on the cross were applied to them by a special intention. Then we seem to allow the merits of his passion to be imputed or applied to some people before they believe. That clashes with the received theological rule that faith is the instrument or means without which Christ's passion-merits are not applied to particular persons. So whoever has Christ's merits singularly applied or imputed must already stand as a believer. How then can we defend this special application of Christ's merits to the elect before they are made faithful and believing?

Latin

Si ponamus electos obtinere gratiam efficacem, sive fidem salutiferam, exinde quod mors meritumque Christi in cruce patientis speciali quadam intentione illis applicabatur, tum videmur admittere merita passionis Christi quibusdam hominibus imputata sive applicata ante fidem ipsorum: At hoc receptae Theologorum sententiae adversatur, quae ponit fidem esse instrumentum sive medium, sine quo merita passionis Christi singularibus personis non applicantur: Necesse est igitur ut is actu fidelis exstet, qui Christi merita habeat sibi singulariter applicata aut imputata. Quomodo igitur defendi potest specialis haec applicatio meritorum Christi ad electos, nondum factos fideles & credentes?

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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.

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