Two Dissertations · §254 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 5 Primo: salvos fieri vs facere — preceptive will, not decretive

If that reading fails, what do Paul's words mean? First notice: he did not say God wills to make all men saved and drag them to the truth by the force of preaching and the Spirit. He said he wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). When God wills to make someone saved, no human will blocks him — so Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 14. These words show what God wills people to do, more than what he wills to work inside them. He wills gospel ministers, as far as they can, to labor that all may be saved and come to Christ; he wills each Christian, by prayer and every means he can, to further the salvation of all. It is ours, Augustine says, who do not know who belongs to the number of the predestined, to will that all be saved (On Rebuke and Grace 15). So the text belongs to the preceptive will that directs us — not to the decretive will that infallibly gives the good God has destined for a person.

Latin

Verum si non placet haec sententia, quis tandem sensus verborum Apostoli? Primo, animadvertendum est, non dixisse Apostolum, Deus vult omnes homines salvos facere, & ad agnitionem veritatis efficacia praedicationis & Spiritus pertrahere; sed, vult omnes salvos fieri, & venire ad cognitionem veritatis. Nam Deo volenti salvum facere nullum hominum resistit arbitrium, ut vere Augustinus De corrept. & grat. cap. 14. Hisce igitur verbis exprimitur potius quid Deus velit ab hominibus fieri, quam quid velit in hominibus facere. Vult Deus, ut Ministri Evangelici teneantur, quantum in illis est, niti ut omnes salvi fiant, & ad Christum veniant; vult ut singuli Christiani orando, aliisque quibus possunt modis, promoveant salutem omnium hominum. Nostrum est, inquit Augustinus, qui nescimus quisnam pertineat ad numerum praedestinatorum, velle omnes salvos fieri, cap. 15. Ad voluntatem igitur praecipientem, quae homines dirigit, haec verba pertinent; non ad voluntatem decernentem, quae bonum homini destinatum infallibiliter largitur.

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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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