Two Dissertations · §241 · John Davenant

Cap. II Arg. 3: 1 Cor. 2:9 — prepared for those who love him (king/crown analogy)

Third: they bring 1 Cor. 2:9 — "Eye has not seen… the things God prepared for those who love him." On ordinary speech, "for those who love him" looks like the cause of the preparation. Say a king prepared a crown for whoever scales a besieged city's walls: that would mean the crown was destined to this or that man from foresight of the climb — and no other way.

Latin

Tertio, affertur illud ex 1. Cor. ii. 9. Oculus non vidit, &c. quae praeparavit Deus iis qui diligunt illum. Verba illa, iis qui diligunt illum, secundum communem loquendi modum ipsam causam praeparationis indicant. Nam si quis diceret Regem praeparasse aut destinasse coronam adscendentibus muros oppugnatae alicujus civitatis, hoc dicto significaret ex praevisione adscensionis hanc coronam esse huic vel illi destinatam, & non aliter.

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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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