Two Dissertations · §341 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14: same execution order granted — opposite order of intention denied

So we grant God decreed from eternity and foresaw that things would be executed in the same order he executes them in time — but we deny he also intended in that execution-order. In the acts of the divine will and mind there is of themselves no priority of order; in our understanding of the things' relation, execution and intention take plainly opposite orders. The decree of execution always starts from what is farther from the end and steps toward effecting it: God decreed to call Paul before justifying him, to justify and adorn with good works before glorifying. Executive will regards the external actual effecting, so what concurs earlier to producing the thing is referred earlier to that will. Intention, conversely, always starts from the end itself and moves to means so that it always wills first what is nearer the end.

Latin

Damus ergo, Deum eodem ordine quo in tempore mandat res exsecutioni, decrevisse ab aeterno et praevidisse quod mandarentur: sed negamus, eo ordine quo mandat exsecutioni, aut decrevit mandare, etiam intendisse. Nam cum in actibus voluntatis et mentis Divinae per se nulla sit prioritas aut posterioritas ordinis, secundum nostrum modum intelligendi, et rerum ipsarum habitudinem, non idem, sed plane oppositus ordo concipiendus est in exsecutione atque intentione Divina. Decretum exsecutionis orditur semper ab eo quod est remotius ab ipso fine, et sic gradatim progreditur ad effectionem finis: hoc sensu; Deus decrevit vocare Paulum prius quam justificare, justificare et bonis operibus ornare prius quam glorificare. Cum enim decretum exsecutionis, vel voluntas exsecutiva respiciat externam et actualem rei effectionem, illud prius ad hanc voluntatem referatur necesse est quod prius concurrit ad rem efficiendam. Jam vero e contra, Intentio voluntatis orditur semper ab ipso fine, et a fine sic ad media progreditur, ut semper prius id velit quod est fini propinquius.

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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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