Two Dissertations · §360 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol: two pleasing — destined vs adopted; Orange 25; first love from God's fountain

Further: some please God before others as destined to faith and eternal life; some please as sons already adopted, sanctified, and accepted to the right of eternal life. In the prior sense (ours in this controversy) it is not only possible that one please God before faith had or foreseen — it is plainly impossible to please otherwise. Best Orange canon 25: Displeasing we were loved, that there might be made in us whence we might please. If we could receive no gift from God unless we first pleased him, and could not please without faith first, then either faith's gift is from us not God, or you get an infinite regress. So the reason of first complacency — divine love toward the fallen creature — is not some antecedent good quality in man, but must be fetched from the fountain of divine love. Love is the first gift in which all others are given; and God's love has this singular: it does not find but makes its object lovable to itself (Deut. 7:7–8).

Latin

Porro recte dicimus quosdam placere Deo prae aliis, ut destinatos ad fidem et vitam aeternam; quosdam etiam placere Deo ut Dei filios actu jam adoptatos, sanctificatos, et ad jus vitae aeternae acceptatos. Priore sensu (quem nos respicere debemus in hac controversia) non modo possibile est ut quis ante habitam vel praevisam suam fidem placeat Deo, sed plane impossibile est ut aliter placeat. Optime Concilium Arausicanum, canone 25. Displicentes amati sumus, ut fieret in nobis unde placeremus. Si enim nullum beneficium a Deo accipere possemus, nisi prius ei placeremus, placere autem non possemus, nisi prius fidem habeamus: aut ipsum fidei beneficium a nobis, non a Deo habemus, aut dabitur processus in infinitum. Scire igitur oportet, rationem primæ complacentiae, sive amoris Divini erga lapsam creaturam, non in hominis bona aliqua qualitate antecedanea esse quaerendam, sed ex ipso fonte Divini amoris esse arcessendam. Nam amor est primum donum, in quo caetera omnia donantur: et amor Dei hoc habet singulare, quod non invenit sed facit suum objectum sibi amabile. Deut. vii. 7, 8. Te elegit Dominus Deus tuus, ut sis ei populus peculiaris, quia dilexit vos Dominus, non quia cunctas gentes numero vinceretis.

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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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