Two Dissertations · §301 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 6 close: no praevisa congruentia; Miserebor cujus misertus fuero

So for this first benefit, if some reason of justice is to appear in it, we must not require a foreseen congruity in the elect. It is just insofar as it is fitting for the divine will and goodness to act thus — according to I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy — not I will have mercy on those in whom, that I may do this justly at once, I shall have foreseen certain congruent merits.

Latin

Ad hoc igitur primum beneficium, ut appareat in eo ratio quaedam justitiae, non debemus requirere praevisam aliquam congruentiam in electis: sed eatenus hoc justum est, quatenus convenit voluntati et bonitati Divinae sic agere velle, juxta illud, Miserebor cujus misertus fuero; non autem, Miserebor illorum in quibus, ut hoc juste simul faciam, merita quaedam congrua praevidero.

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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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