Two Dissertations · §309 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 8: electing the corrupt mass — no duty to choose the majority

Further: We are speaking of election to life of people who are all utterly worthy of eternal death. We may grant that from the goodness of his nature God wills of eternal life to all humans as considered before the fall, adorned with justice and holiness — yet no reason forces us to say that, from humans corrupted and sunk in the damnable mass, his goodness obliges him to elect either all or the greater part to glory.

Latin

Porro, illud quoque observandum nos loqui de electione eorum ad vitam, qui sunt omnes morte aeterna dignissimi. Quamvis igitur admittamus Deum ex bonitate suae naturae velle omnibus hominibus, quatenus considerantur ante lapsum justitia et sanctitate ornati, donum illud aeternae vitae; nulla tamen ratio cogit ut dicamus, ex hominibus corruptis et in massa damnabili obrutis, Deum pro bonitate sua debere vel omnes, vel majorem partem eligere ad gloriam.

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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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