Two Dissertations · §258 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6: scopus — do not despise the poor; 1 Cor. 1:26 parallel

Reply: James's point is that we must not despise the poor. Far from neglecting them, God in spiritual gifts mostly prefers them to the richer. The rich, for their part, are not to be overrated and honored while the poor are ignored — God often sends the rich away empty and fills the poor with goods. 1 Corinthians 1:26 runs the same way: not many wise by flesh, not many mighty, not many noble — God chose what the world calls foolish to shame the strong. So the Apostle shows God has chosen more from the poor, to give them faith and the heavenly inheritance, than from the rich.

Latin

Scopus verborum hic est; Pauperes non esse a nobis contemnendos, quia tantum abest ut negligantur a Deo, ut in dispensatione rerum spiritualium maximam ob partem praeferantur ditioribus: Divites e contra non esse nimis suspiciendos, & cum neglectu pauperum honorandos, quia Deus saepenumero vacuos dimittit divites, cum pauperes impleat bonis. Non absimilis huic est ille alter locus 1 Cor. i. 26. Non multi sapientes secundum carnem, non multi potentes, non multi nobiles: Sed quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat fortia, &c. Ostendit ergo Apostolus Deum ex classe pauperum plures elegisse, quos tum fide tum hereditate caelesti donaret, quam ex numero divitum.

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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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