Two Dissertations · §265 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7: crown of ministry vs heavenly glory — alternate reading first

Reply: the words fit the crown of ministry at least as well as heavenly glory — "Hold what you have" as keep the bishop's office steadily and carefully; "lest another take your crown" as lest, if you prove negligent, someone else is put in your place after you are set aside. Still, many read them of the heavenly crown without strain. Take that sense, and we answer as follows.

Latin

Respondeo, haec verba non minore probabilitate ad coronam ministerii accommodari posse quam ad coronam caelestis gloriae, hoc nimirum sensu; Tene quod habes, id est, Episcopale officium constanter & diligenter exerce: ne alius accipiat coronam tuam, hoc est, ne, si tu negligentem te ostenderis, alius, te rejecto, in locum tuum sufficiatur. Sed quia eadem verba possunt haud incommode, & solent a multis, ad coronam caelestis gloriae referri, hoc sensu admisso, respondemus.

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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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