Two Dissertations · §290 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 4: pride; impossible in sin — efficacious grace only to predestined

Further, it is not the best mode of electing, because it puffs a person up with pride by assuming each has by his own works set himself apart from the those not chosen. Finally: it is so far from best that it is not even possible a person corrupted by sin no merits efficacious for eternal life can be foreknown unless God has freely given them. God gives those only to whom he decreed from eternity to give. He decreed efficacious grace unto salvation only to those he predestined to salvation. From first to last, then, such merits cannot be foreseen in those not yet elected to eternal life — so they are not elected to life from a preceding foresight of merits.

Latin

Porro, non est optimus modus eligendi, quia hominem inflat superbia, dum supponit unumquemque suis operibus semet a non-electis discrevisse. Demum addo, tantum abest ut sit optimus, ut ne possibilis quidem sit in hoc statu peccati. In homine enim per peccatum corrupto nulla possunt praesciri merita ad vitam aeternam efficacia, nisi Deus gratuito illa dederit. Deus nulli dat talia, nisi cui decrevit dare ab aeterno. Nemini decrevit dare gratiam efficacem ad salutem, nisi illis quos praedestinavit ad salutem. A primo igitur ad ultimum, merita talium non possunt praevideri in nondum electis ad vitam aeternam: Non igitur ex praescientia meritorum praecedente ad vitam eliguntur.

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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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