Two Dissertations · §283 · John Davenant

Cap. III Rat. 3: king’s prize — no glory-decree before victory / perseverance foresight

Rat. 3. In God’s will the order of acts is not read in itself but by analogy to human willing — so in our way of speaking we call one thing prior and another later as willed or foreseen by God. Based on that premise Vasquez presses: as a king who sets a prize for those who contend well, on the rule that only the victor takes it, never decrees to give that prize to anyone — however loved — before he sees him possessed of the victory, so of God: he never decrees to anyone the prize of eternal glory (promised as a crown to those who contend lawfully) except after intuition of victory, that is perseverance in good works. And since God foreknows all futures, from eternity he foresaw who would win, and from that foresight decreed to give them glory — as a prince, seeing someone has conquered, only then resolves to assign the prize.

Latin

Rat. 3. In Divina voluntate ordo actuum consideratur non per se, sed ex analogia quadam ad voluntatem humanam: unde secundum nostrum intelligendi modum aliquid prius, aliquid posterius a Deo volitum sive praevisum affirmamus. Hoc posito contendit Vasques, Sicuti cum Rex aliquis proponit premium bene certantibus, ea lege ut nullus illo potiatur nisi qui victor sit, nunquam decernit alicui, quantumvis amato, dare illud premium, antequam illum videat victoria potitum; ita de Deo sentiendum, nunquam illum decernere alicui premium aeternae gloriae, quod tanquam coronam promisit legitime certantibus, nisi post intuitum victoriae, hoc est, perseverantiae in bonis operibus. Jam vero quia Deus est praescius omnium futurorum, ab aeterno praevidit quinam victoriam reportabunt, atque idcirco ab aeterno ex hac praevisione decrevit illis dare gloriam: sicuti princeps, cum videt aliquem vicisse, tum demum statuit illi premium assignare.

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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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