Two Dissertations · §306 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 7 close: gratuitous affection first; Romans 9:12; Ephesians 1:5

From this you see: not foresight of human cooperation, but God's gratuitous affection alone is presupposed as antecedent to the election and predestination of particular persons. The Apostle illustrated it in that famous example of Jacob and Esau (Romans 9:12), and said it in plain words in Ephesians 1:5: who predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. And here enough for this argument.

Latin

Ex quibus videtis, non praescientiam humanae cooperationis, sed gratuitum affectum Dei solummodo praesupponi ut antecedens ad electionem et praedestinationem singularum personarum. Quod Apostolus illustravit in illo celeberrimo exemplo Jacobi et Esavi, quod proponitur Rom. ix. 12. Et etiam disertis verbis expressit Ephes. i. 5. Qui praedestinavit nos, quos adoptaret in filios per Jesum Christum in sese, pro beneplacito affatus voluntatis suae. Atque hic huic argumento factum est satis.

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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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