Two Dissertations · §300 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 6: Aquinas — justice presupposes mercy; first gift free adoption

For as Aquinas puts it best (ST I q.21 a.4): every work of divine justice always presupposes a work of mercy on which it is founded. So we must not run to infinity — we have to arrive at some first thing that depends on the mercy and goodness of the divine will alone. And what else can that be than the gratuitous adoption and destination of the elect to eternal life?

Latin

Nam, ut optime Aquinas Part. I. qu. 21. art. 4, Omne opus Divinae justitiae semper praesupponit opus misericordiae, in quo fundatum sit. Nil igitur procedere velimus in infinitum, deveniamus necesse est ad aliquod primum, quod ex sola misericordia et bonitate Divinae voluntatis dependet. Hoc autem quid aliud esse potest, quam gratuita illa adoptio et destinatio electorum ad vitam aeternam?

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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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