Two Dissertations · §237 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 2: foresight of sanctity not cause — decree precedes foresight

Reply: those texts do not say God elected or predestined certain people to glory because he foresaw they would be conformed to Christ's image — holy and good. They say he elected those he foreknew, and predestined them to become conformed, or elected them unto sanctification. So foresight of future holiness was not the cause of predestination; predestination was the cause of the holiness foreseen. God foresees no saving spiritual good in people except what he himself works in them; he works none except what he decreed to work. The decree to work grace and holiness — already wrapped into predestination — always comes before any foresight of grace and holiness as in them.

Latin

In locis allegatis non dicitur Deus elegisse aut praedestinasse certos homines ad gloriam quia praescivit eos fore conformes imagini Christi, id est, sanctos & bonos, sed dicitur eos elegisse quos praescivit, atque praedestinasse ut conformes fierent, vel elegisse in sanctificationem. Praescientia igitur futurae sanctitatis non fuit causa praedestinationis, sed praedestinatio causa praevisae sanctitatis. Deus enim nullum bonum salutiferum & spirituale in hominibus praevidet, nisi quod ipse in illis operatur; nullum bonum operatur, nisi quod decrevit operari. Decretum igitur operandi gratiam & sanctitatem, quod in praedestinatione includitur, semper praecedit praevisionem gratiae & sanctitatis, quae hominibus inesse intelligitur.

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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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