Two Dissertations · §365 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 3 Sol: beneplacitum that includes praedestinatio is the arcane will from the mass

The good pleasure that actually includes predestination is not those declared statutes, but God's eternal secret will: from the same mass of perdition he resolved with himself to lead some persons infallibly to glory by pure mercy through efficacious grace, and according to justice to leave others in the perdition they merit.

Latin

Beneplacitum ergo illud in quo ipsa praedestinatio includitur, est aeterna illa et arcana Dei voluntas, qua statuit apud se, ex eadem perditionis massa quasdam personas ex pura misericordia per gratiam efficacem ad gloriam infallibiliter perducere, aliis secundum justitiam in merita perditione relictis.

Report a mistake in this passage

About this text

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.

Printed text used

Also checked PDF of the 1650 (Latin · print facsimile)
Also checked DjVu machine-read text of the 1650 (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake