Two Dissertations · §266 · John Davenant

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7 Primo: elect cannot lose crown — certainty from causal chain, not bare foresight

First: the predestined cannot lose the crown of glory. That certainty does not come from a force that drags them into eternal life, nor from bare foresight of what free will will do. It rests on the chain of causes special providence has linked so the elect's salvation is produced without fail. Paul marks that as causality, not naked foresight — Romans 8: God so set and steers the order of causes for the elect that even what looks hostile still works for their souls' eternal good (vv. 28ff to the chapter's end).

Latin

Primo, Non posse praedestinatos amittere coronam gloriae: hanc tamen certitudinem adipiscendi coronam non oriri ex necessitate cogente illos ad vitam aeternam, neque niti mera Dei praescientia intuente quid illi ex libero suo arbitrio facturi sint; sed fundatam esse in illo causarum ordine quem specialis quaedam Divina providentia ad salutem electorum infallibiliter producendam concatenavit. Hanc certitudinem, non nudae praescientiae, sed causalitatis Apostolus indicavit Rom. viii. ubi docet ita Deum instituisse & gubernare ordinem causarum ad promovendam salutem electorum, ut omnia etiam illa quae saluti illorum infesta videntur, tamen cooperentur illis in aeternum bonum animarum; versu 28. & seq. usque ad finem capitis.

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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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