Two Dissertations · §289 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 4: not optimum — strips pure mercy; Detur totum Deo; Cyprian

Sol. That God does all things in the best way no one but the worst would deny — yet we deny that the best way of electing people to eternal life is the one that rests on foresight of merits. It is not best, because it does least to display the glory of God’s pure mercy toward the elect. It strips what Augustine everywhere presses: Let the whole be given to God. It also strips Cyprian’s line, which Augustine never praised enough: In nothing is one to glory, because nothing is ours.

Latin

Sol. Deum optimo modo omnia facere, nemo nisi pessimus audet negare: sed negamus tamen optimum modum eligendi homines ad vitam aeternam esse illum, qui nititur praescientia meritorum. Non est optimus, quia non optime facit ad illustrandam gloriam purae misericordiae Divinae erga electos. Nam tollit illud quod Augustinus passim inculcat, Detur totum Deo. Tollit etiam illud Cypriani, ab Augustino nunquam satis laudatum, In nullo gloriandum; quia nihil est nostrum.

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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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