Two Dissertations · §249 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 4: vas in honorem twofold — eternal purpose vs actual sanctification

Add: "vessel unto honour" is said two ways. From God's eternal electing purpose to honour — and then being such a vessel does not hang on foresight of sanctification; sanctification afterward flows from that decree. Or from actual sanctification — and in that sense someone becomes a vessel unto honour when, purified and renewed by God's Spirit, he begins among God's honoured servants to serve the divine honour in a holy life.

Latin

Huc adde, vas in honorem dupliciter dici: Vel ex proposito aeterno Dei eligentis ad honorem: & sic, ut quis sit vas in honorem, non pendet ex sanctificatione praevisa, sed sanctificatio postmodum fluit ab hoc decreto. Vel ex actuali sanctificatione: & hoc sensu tum fit aliquis vas in honorem, quando spiritu Dei purificatus & renovatus incipit inter honoratos Dei servos honori Divino in sanctitate vitae inservire.

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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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