Two Dissertations · §342 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14: servant-to-Gaul ship example — intention vs execution order

These points are thorny, so an example: I intend to send my servant into Gaul — I will that before I decree anything about getting a ship; I would never have thought to prepare him a little boat unless sending him to Gaul had already been decided. At execution I will to have the ship ready before sending him across, since the crossing cannot happen without a ship. If someone objects that I changed my will — because at first I intended the crossing before the ship, and now I will to put him aboard before sending him across — who would not laugh at such subtleties? In one will earlier and later follow the internal order of willing; in the other, the external order of effecting.

Latin

Quia haec spinosiora sunt, ea exemplo apposito illustrabimus. Intendo servum meum in Galliam mittere: prius hoc volo quam de navi comparanda aliquid decerno: nunquam enim apud animum meum statuissem aut cogitassem naviculam illi praeparare, nisi prius decretum fuisset illum in Galliam transmittere. Jam cum ad exsecutionem ventum fuerit, volo prius nave comparere quam illum transmittere: Intelligo enim hanc transfretationem absque navi fieri nullo modo posse. Hic si quis objiciat me voluntatem mutasse, quia ab initio prius intendebam de transmissione quam de navi, nunc prius volo illum in navim imponere quam transmittere, quis non riserit hujusmodi argutias? Cum in una voluntate prius et posterius considerentur secundum internum ordinem volitionis, in altera secundum externum ordinem effectionis.

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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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