Two Dissertations · §313 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 9: intention vs execution — glory destined before foresight of faith

Sol. One thing is glory destined to the elect before the world's foundations, according to God's intention; another is that same glory conferred on them in time by executing the decree. In God's intention itself glory — and so great a glory — was predestined to Stephen before foresight of his patience and faith. Indeed, in the decree of predestination God had prepared him that faith and patience because he had elected him to that glory.

Latin

Sol. Aliud est considerare gloriam ante jacta mundi fundamenta electis destinatam secundum Dei intentionem, aliud considerare eandem ipsis in tempore collatam per ejusdem decreti exsecutionem. In ipsa Dei intentione praedestinata fuit gloria, et tanta gloria Stephano, ante praescientiam patientiae et fidei ejus: Imo in praedestinationis decreto tantam fidem et patientiam Deus illi praeparaverat, quia ad tantam gloriam illum elegerat.

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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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