Two Dissertations · §229 · John Davenant

Cap. II: Scholastici — causes of election (moral works / use of grace); Rom. 9 overthrows

Next, down from the Semipelagians to the Scholastics. Not a few of them teach that predestination — or election — has a cause insofar as it falls on this man rather than that. Some plead good moral works before justifying grace; others good works after it; others foresight of a good use of God's grace. I need not linger refuting these views: one blow from the Apostle flattens them all (Rom. 9:11) — the children not yet born, having done nothing good or evil, so that God's purpose according to election might stand, not from works but from the One who calls.

Latin

Sed descendamus a Semipelagianis ad Scholasticos. Ex hisce nonnulli docent causam dari praedestinationis seu electionis, quatenus cadit super hunc hominem potius quam super illum. Atque hic quidam obtendunt opera bona moralia, quae antecedunt gratiam justificationis; alii, opera bona quae subsequuntur; alii praevisum bonum usum gratiae Divinae. Verum haud necesse est ut in hisce sententiis refellendis inhaeream, quae omnes unico illo Apostoli ictu prosternuntur Rom. ix. 11. Nondum natis pueris, cum nihil fecissent boni vel mali, ut propositum Dei secundum electionem maneret, non ex operibus, sed ex vocante, dictum est, &c.

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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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