Two Dissertations · §272 · John Davenant

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: Bannes — common will only before sin / Adam intact

Rejection. That "common will to give eternal life to all" (Bannes is right) is only how we picture things before foreknowledge of sin. It proves at most that in intact Adam God willed everyone's salvation and gave him enough means — if Adam had used them, neither he nor his line would have fallen into eternal death's guilt. Once Adam fell, I deny God ever had a common, indifferent will to give eternal life to all in Christ Jesus.

Latin

Rej. Communis illa voluntas dandi vitam aeternam omnibus, (ut optime Bannes) secundum nostrum modum intelligendi concipitur ante praescientiam peccati. Eo igitur tantum valebit, ut inde probetur, Deum in Adamo integro voluisse communem omnium hominum salutem, atque in hunc finem dedisse Adamo sufficientia media, quibus si uti voluisset, neque seipsum, neque posteros in aeternae mortis reatum praecipitasset. Posito autem primi Adami lapsu, nego Deum unquam habuisse communem & indifferentem illam voluntatem dandi omnibus vitam aeternam in Christo Jesu.

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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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