Two Dissertations · §362 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 3: beneplacitum de salute = praedestinatio — 1 Cor. 1:21 Credentes velle salvare

Arg. 3. God's good pleasure concerning human salvation is predestination itself to salvation; to will to save believers is that good pleasure concerning men's salvation; therefore. They call the Major clearly true, because election means nothing but God's good pleasure concerning the elect man's salvation. The Minor they found in 1 Cor. 1:21 — It pleased God by the foolish preaching to save believers — and illustrate from the contrary: in those who barely believe, God has no good pleasure, but his soul loathes them, and he swears such will not enter his rest (1 Cor. 10:5; Heb. 3:18).

Latin

Arg. 3. Beneplacitum Dei de salute humana est ipsa praedestinatio ad salutem: Credentes velle salvare, est beneplacitum Dei de salute hominum: Ergo. Majorem dicunt esse perspicue veram, quia ipsa vox electionis nihil aliud significat, quam Dei beneplacitum de salute hominis electi. Minorem in ipsis verbis Apostoli fundatam ostendunt, 1 Cor. i. 21, Placuit Deo per stultam praedicationem servare credentes. Quod etiam a contrario illustrant, Quia Deus in hominibus minime credentibus non habet beneplacitum, sed anima ejus fastidit eos; juratque tales non ingressuros in requiem suam, 1 Cor. x. 5. Heb. iii. 18.

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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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