Two Dissertations · §271 · John Davenant

Cap. III open + Rat. 1: common inefficacious will before foresight of merits

Cap. III — the adversaries' arguments weighed and answered. Now to their reasons. First they try to prove no one is chosen for glory by God's efficacious will except from foreseen merits, like this: Rat. 1. the will to give eternal life that comes before foresight of merits is only a common, ineffective will, looking equally at all — reprobate and predestinate alike. So if God efficaciously wills glory for someone, that hangs on foresight of merits.

Latin

CAP. III. Argumenta adversariorum expenduntur & dissolvuntur. Jam rationes adversariorum ventilemus. Primo igitur conantur demonstrare, neminem esse efficaci Dei voluntate electum ad gloriam nisi ex meritis praevisis, hujusmodi argumentatione: Rat. 1. Voluntas dandi vitam aeternam, quae antecedit praevisionem meritorum, est quaedam voluntas communis & inefficax, quae ex aequo respicit omnes homines, tam praeteritos quam praedestinatos: Ergo quod vult Deus alicui efficaciter dare gloriam, pendet ex praevisione meritorum.

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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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