Two Dissertations · §246 · John Davenant

Cap. II Arg. 4: 2 Tim. 2:21 — vessels unto honour from foresight of cleansing

Fourth: they bring 2 Tim. 2:21 — "If anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and useful to the Lord." So the vessels of election (or mercy) are those God foresaw would cleanse themselves: election, they say, rests on foresight of holy works.

Latin

Quarto, objicitur ille locus 2 Timoth. ii. 21, Si quis emundaverit se ab istis, erit vas in honorem sanctificatum & utile Domino. Vasa igitur electionis sive misericordiae illa sunt, quos Deus praevidit & praescivit sese emundaturos: Electio igitur nititur praevisione sanctorum operum.

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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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