Two Dissertations · §358 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol: Major stuffed with equivocations — sine quo as condition vs means; elect infants

Now the syllogism. The Major — Without that without which one cannot please God, no one can be elected to salvation — is stuffed with equivocations. Without which as a condition versus a means. In the first sense it touches the cause but is manifestly false; in the second it does not even touch it, and still is not absolutely true. For some so far please God as to be elected to eternal life in whom God foresees no faith at all, much less antecedent faith. Example: the elect infants who die before they can believe or persevere. What will never be is not foreseen; foresight's object is something infallibly future.

Latin

Sed ipsum syllogismum ventilemus. Major propositio, Sine quo impossibile est placere Deo, sine eo impossibile est eligi quenquam ad salutem, tota farcta est aequivocationibus. Vocabula illa, sine quo, intelligi possunt dupliciter: sine quo praeviso et praeconsiderato ut antecedanea conditione nemo potest eligi ad salutem a Deo; vel, sine quo tanquam medio praeparato et destinato impossibile est eligi quenquam ad salutem. Priore sensu causam attingit, sed manifeste falsa est: Posteriore ne attingit quidem, et tamen non est absolutae veritatis. Nam quidem eatenus Deo placent, ut ad vitam aeternam eligantur, in quibus Deus non praevidet fidem omnino, nedum antecedaneam. Exemplo sint electi illi infantes qui moriuntur, priusquam per aetatem credere, aut in fide perseverare possint. Quod enim nunquam futurum est, a Deo non praevidetur: cum objectum praescientiae sit quiddam infallibiliter futurum.

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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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