Two Dissertations · §250 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 4 close: Lyranus — mark of destined vessels, not foresight-cause

So Lyranus seems to take the place: "he will be a vessel unto honour" means a vessel set apart for divine worship. However you read it, the text does not prove God elects us to glory from foresight of our holiness. It proves the elect to glory are filled with true holiness, known by that mark as vessels destined to honour, and actually put to honourable use through that holiness.

Latin

Sic videtur hunc locum intellexisse Lyranus, qui exponit haec verba, erit vas in honorem id est, erit vas Divino cultui applicatum. Sed quocunque modo intelligatur hic locus, non probat Deum nos eligere ad gloriam ex praevisione nostrae sanctitatis, sed electos ad gloriam imbui vera sanctitate, & ex hac nota pro vasis ad honorem destinatis agnosci, & actualiter ad usum honorabilem per hanc sanctitatem applicari.

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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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