Two Dissertations · §279 · John Davenant

Cap. III Resp. Rat. 2: deny the split — end-intention causes means; Paul/grace

Resp. We do not grant Vasquez's physical/moral split at all. In the order of intention (the real question) the end causes the means — moral as well as physical — and from desiring the end first those means are chosen and applied. Known rule: means are applied toward the end. So intending the end always comes before supplying the means. God would not have destined efficacious grace to Paul unless he had first efficaciously destined to give him glory.

Latin

Resp. Hoc discrimen inter media physica & moralia, quod Vasques cupit stabilire, nullo modo admittimus. Nam secundum ordinem intentionis (de quo jam quaeritur) finis est causa mediorum tam moralium quam physicorum: atque ex praecedente finis desiderio media haec tum eliguntur tum adhibentur. Nota est regula, Media adhibentur in ordine ad finem. Finis itaque intentio semper praecedit suppeditationem mediorum. Non enim Deus destinasset Paulo efficacem gratiam, nisi prius efficaciter destinasset dare illi gloriam.

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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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