Two Dissertations · §343 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14 close: Peter to heaven — same will, diverse habitude; Papist case ends

Fit this to our case: God intends to send Peter into Heaven — he wills that before he decrees efficacious, infallible means for him; he would never have resolved to supply such means unless he had first efficaciously decreed to give him heavenly glory. At execution God wills that Peter first share in grace, work well from grace, and persevere in good works to the end, before he makes harbor at heavenly glory. If some Jesuit disputant rises and shouts that God changed his will — because at first he intended glory for Peter before grace or perseverance, and now wills the reverse, grace and persevering good works before glory — I will laugh at the man's folly, and say this diverse consideration of intention and production of the same thing does not posit a diverse or changeable will in God, but a diverse way of considering the same will toward the same thing through different perspectives. That is nearly all the Papists dispute for election from foreseen works.

Latin

Accommodemus haec instituto nostro: Deus intendit Petrum in Caelum transmittere: prius hoc vult quam media efficacia et infallibilia illi decernit: nunquam enim statuisset talia media illi suppeditare, nisi prius efficaciter decrevisset caelestem gloriam illi donare. Verum jam ad exsecutionem descendatur, Deus vult ut prius gratiae particeps fiat, ex gratia bene operetur, in bonis operibus ad finem usque perseveret, quam ad portum caelestis gloriae appellat. Hic si Jesuiticus aliquis disputator insurgat et vociferetur, Deum mutasse voluntatem suam, quia ab initio prius intendebat Petro gloriam quam gratiam aut perseverantiam in bonis operibus, nunc vult e contra ut prius gratia imbuatur, et in bonis operibus perseveranter ambulet, quam ad gloriam perveniat, ridebo hominis ineptias, et dicam diversam hanc considerationem, quoad intentionem et productionem ejusdem rei, non ponere in Deo diversam aut mutabilem voluntatem, sed ejusdem voluntatis ad eandem rem sub diversis considerationibus diversam habitudinem. Haec fere ea sunt quae a Papistis disputantur pro electione ex praevisis operibus.

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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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