Two Dissertations · §298 · John Davenant

Cap. III Rat. 6: mercy with justice needs elect congruitas; Javellus

Rat. 6. In all God's works mercy with justice needs elect fitness — so, they say, we must posit on the elect's side some ity that was not on the reprobate's; otherwise no trace of justice will show in this election of God — and that he elects from foresight, not from the mere good pleasure of his will. So argues Javellus in the Questions annexed to Aquinas's Prima Pars.

Latin

Rat. 6. In omnibus operibus Dei misericordia concurrit cum justitia: Ergo ponere debemus ex parte electi aliquam convenientiam sive congruitatem, quae non fuit ex parte reprobi; secus nullum justitiae vestigium in hac Dei electione apparebit: Et quod elegit ex praevisione, et non ex mero beneplacito voluntatis suae. Est argumentum Javelli in Quaestionibus adjunctis primae parti Aquinatis.

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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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