Two Dissertations · §320 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 10: Bannes — no real independence; Apage — glory with future good works

Think the same of the absolute, efficacious decree for Peter's glorification, and of the means of grace and good works by which he is brought to glory. Báñez saw this and exploded such consequences (In 1. q.23 a.2): from a priority in our way of understanding within one genus of cause, people infer without any show a real priority in the things themselves, or independence of one from another in the order God set — as if: Form was willed by God before matter, therefore form would come to be even if matter never would. Equal folly: If glory was willed to Peter before grace, or before foresight of the good works that flow from grace, then even if Peter stayed devoid of grace and good works he would still get glory. Away with that nonsense! Though God does not will glory to this particular person from prior intuition of his works, but from the gratuitous good pleasure of his will, he still wills him glory with intuition of future good working as the necessary mode by which God ordained that the person proceed to that end.

Latin

Idem prorsus cogitandum de absoluto et efficaci decreto quoad Petri glorificationem, et de mediis gratiae bonorumque operum per quae ad gloriam perducetur. Vide hoc doctissimus Bannes, et hujusmodi consequentias explosit: In istis consequentiis, inquit, ex prioritate nostrae rationis quantum ad modum intelligendi in uno genere causae, colligitur absque ulla apparentia prioritas realis in ipsis rebus, vel Independentia unius rei ab altera secundum ordinem statutum a Deo: sicuti quis diceret, Prius a Deo volita est forma quam materia, ergo etiamsi non esset futura materia, fieret forma. Haec ille, In 1. qu. 23. art. 2. Par illorum stultitia qui argumentantur: Si prius Petro volita sit gloria quam gratia, aut quam praevisa sunt bona opera quae fluunt ex gratia, tum etiamsi Petrus maneret expers gratiae et bonorum operum, gloriam tamen consequeretur. Apage has ineptias! Nam licet Deus non velit gloriam huic singulari homini ex intuitu antecedente operum ejus, sed ex beneplacito voluntatis suae gratuito, vult tamen illi gloriam cum intuitu bonae operationis futurae, tanquam modi necessarii, per quem ipse Deus ordinavit ut ad hunc finem obtinendum homo procederet.

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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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