Two Dissertations · §239 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 2: Vulgate "conformes fieri" — not election from foresight of works

Second: Paul did not write "whom he foreknew would be conformed, he predestined," but "whom he foreknew" (that is, foreloved) "he predestined to become conformed" — as the Vulgate rightly supplies what the Greek leaves open. So God is not said to predestine from foresight of our works, but to foreknow the good works he prepared for those already predestined.

Latin

Secundo, non dixit Apostolus, quos praescivit futuros conformes praedestinavit; sed, quos praescivit (hoc est, predilexit) praedestinavit conformes fieri, ut vulgata versio recte supplevit, quod in Graeco contextu deest. Non itaque Deus praedestinare dicitur ex praescientia operum nostrorum, sed praescire bona nostra opera quae praedestinatis praeparavit.

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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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