Two Dissertations · §356 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 2: Heb. 11:6 — without that by which one cannot please God, none can be elected

Arg. 2. Second they argue from Heb. 11:6 — Without faith it is impossible to please God — and build this: Without that without which one cannot please God, no one can be elected by God to salvation; without faith one cannot please God; therefore. They call the Major certain, since electing to salvation is the highest love God can show a man — his greatest love toward a man.

Latin

Arg. 2. Secundo argumentantur ex verbis Apostoli, Hebr. xi. 6. Sine fide impossibile est placere Deo. Unde tale argumentum exstruunt; Sine quo impossibile est placere Deo, sine eo impossibile est a Deo quenquam eligi ad salutem: Sine fide impossibile est placere Deo: Ergo. Majorem certam esse pronunciant, quandoquidem eligere ad salutem, summa est dilectio quam homini Deus praestare potest, sive maxima ipsius in homine dilectio.

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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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