Two Dissertations · §351 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: second — not every revealed placitum is the high Pauline predestination

Second: in our controversy theologians have never meant by the predestination decree any revealed pleasure of the divine will about men's salvation and ruin, under any form. Twist the word that way and Matt. 25:34ff. Itself becomes the decree — Come, blessed of my Father… Depart, cursed… — and so does Rom. 2:6, God will render to each according to his works. Those places do open God's will about salvation and ruin; but to lodge in them that high, inscrutable predestination Paul so celebrates is most alien to Scripture and to all sound theologians.

Latin

Secundo et illud perpendendum, In praesenti nostra controversia Theologos nunquam per decretum praedestinationis intellexisse quodlibet placitum Divinae voluntatis de salute et exitio hominum, sub qualibet forma conceptum et in verbo revelatum. Nam si eo hoc vocabulum torquere libeat, ipsissimum decretum praedestinationis continebitur illis verbis Matth. xxv. 34. &c. Dicet Rex iis qui sunt ad dextram, Venite benedicti Patris mei, possidete regnum paratum vobis a jactis mundi fundamentis. Esurivi enim et dedistis mihi quo vescerer, &c. Dicet iis qui ad sinistram erunt, Abite maledicti in ignem aeternum, qui paratus est diabolo et angelis ejus. Esurivi enim, et non dedistis mihi quo vescerer, &c. Exprimetur etiam praedestinationis decretum et in illis ad Rom. ii. 6. Deus reddet unicuique secundum opera ipsius: iis quidem qui perstant, boni operis gloriam et honorem et immortalitatem: iis vero qui sunt contentiosi, et qui veritati non obtemperant, sed obtemperant injustitiae, reddetur excandescentia et ira, &c. In hisce enim et similibus locis, patefit nobis voluntas Dei de salute et exitio hominum, et tamen in hujusmodi decretis ponere illam altam et inscrutabilem praedestinationem quam Paulus cantopere celebrat et admiratur, est a sensu et sententia Scripturarum, atque omnium sanorum Theologorum alienissimum.

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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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