Two Dissertations · §285 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 3: mortal king cannot inspire victory-powers — if he could, not from foresight

The reason: a mortal king cannot inspire and pour in the will and powers by which this one person rather than others infallibly wins. If he could, nothing would stop him intending and decreeing from a primary, gratuitous will to give that prize to any friend — yet so the friend reaches it by the stated law, namely by winning, and from powers inspired by that primary intention. Were an earthly prince so able, we would not say he elected his friend to the prize from foresight of merits, but that from an antecedent purpose to give the prize he gave the merits and in that gift foresaw them. And that God so deals with all who are to be glorified is confessed.

Latin

Ratio autem haec est; Quia non est penes Regem mortalem inspirare & infundere illam voluntatem, & illas vires ex quibus infallibiliter haec singularis persona prae aliis obtineat victoriam. Si hoc posset, nihil impediret, quin cuicunque amico suo ex primaria & gratuita voluntate intenderet & decerneret dare illud premium, ita tamen ut perveniret ad illud secundum legem positam, nimirum vincendo, idque ex viribus illi inspiratis virtute primariae illius intentionis. Si ita res se haberet in terreno Principe, non ex praevisione meritorum elegisse diceretur amicum suum ad premium obtinendum, sed ex antecedente proposito & intentione dandi premium, dedisse merita, & in hac sua donatione praevidisse. At sic agere Deum cum omnibus glorificandis in confesso est.

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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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