Two Dissertations · §232 · John Davenant

Cap. II: Vasquez enters — thesis: efficacious election from foresight merits

First into the arena: the Papists. For all who hold this view (many of the sounder sort do not), let Vasquez speak. He tries to prop this thesis with many arguments (on ST 1.23.3, disp. 89): There is no efficacious election of particular persons to glory from God's will alone; each is elect to glory from foresight merits which God's grace will bring about. A few notes first so the thesis is clear; then the adversaries' arguments, stated and dissolved.

Latin

In arenam primo prodeant Papistae: atque pro caeteris omnibus qui hanc sententiam sequuntur (nam ex sanioribus multi non sequuntur) loquatur Vasques: Qui hanc thesin multis argumentis stabilire conatur, in 1. quaest. 23. art. 3. disp. 89. Nulla est electio efficax singularium personarum ad gloriam ex sola Dei voluntate; sed quilibet ad gloriam eligitur ex meritis praevisis, quae Dei gratia est facturus. Pauca praemitto, ut ipsa thesis melius intelligatur, dein argumenta adversariorum proponam & dissolvam.

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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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