Two Dissertations · §352 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: third — properly a practical decree gifting singular persons grace and glory

Third: predestination properly taken does not mean a universal law showing all alike how salvation is obtained or death incurred — Whoever believes and perseveres in piety will be saved; whoever does not believe or practice piety will be damned. It designates a practical decree by which from eternity God established to gift certain singular persons infallibly with singular goods: efficacious grace and eternal life. So Paul takes it in Rom. 8, restricting it to definite persons and joining it inseparably with glorification; so the School, which defined it as the preparation of grace in the present and of glory in the future. Decrees that only say generally what sort of men get eternal ling nothing about grace and glory for any singular persons, do not express predestination's force and nature.

Latin

Tertio cognoscere oportet, praedestinationis decretum proprie sumptum denotare, non legem universalem ostendentem omnibus ex aequo, quo modo, vel quibus mediis, salus obtineatur, aut mors incurratur: Qualia sunt illa, Quisquis crediderit, quisquis in pietate perseveraverit, salvus erit; et contra, Quisquis non crediderit, quisquis opera pietatis non exercuerit, damnabitur. Sed praedestinatio designat practicum Dei decretum, quo ab aeterno statuit singulares quasdam personas singularibus bonis, hoc est, gratia efficaci et vita aeterna, infallibiliter donare. Sic Paulus praedestinationem accipit Rom. viii; quando illam ad quasdam certas personas restringit, et cum glorificatione inseparabili nexu conjungit: sic Schola Theologorum, quae illam definivit Praeparationem gratiae in praesenti, et gloriae in futuro. Decreta ergo illa in quibus exponitur tantum generatim qualibus hominibus vita aeterna donabitur, qualibus mors aeterna infligetur, interim autem nihil statuitur de danda gratia et gloria ullis singularibus personis; talia, inquam, decreta vim naturamque praedestinationis non exprimunt.

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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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