Two Dissertations · §368 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol: conclusion misses the point — believers consequently, not antecedently; Augustine

Sol. Start from their conclusion: it does not settle what is in controversy. The question is not whether election is only of those who will be believers — or of those God foresaw before the world's foundations would believe — but whether that eternal act of divine election prerequires that foresight as cause, or at least antecedent condition. We deny it; adversaries cannot prove it. We grant election is of believers only — not believers in divine foresight before election, but believers consequently, by virtue of the grace prepared and destined for them in election. So Augustine, De praed. Sanct. 18: we were going to be such because he chose that we should be such through grace; and ch. 10: by predestination God foresaw what he himself would do (likewise ch. 17). Consult those places for the best solution of this Arminian argument and the best reading of this Pauline context.

Latin

Sol. Ab ipsa conclusione ordiamur responsionem nostram. Dicimus ergo, non concludi illud quod positum est in controversia. Non enim quaeritur utrum electio sit solummodo eorum qui credentes sunt futuri, vel, quod eodem recidit, eorum quos Deus ante jacta mundi fundamenta praevidet credituros; sed utrum aeternus ille actus electionis Divinae praerequirat hanc praevisionem tanquam causam, aut saltem conditionem antecedaneam: quod nos negamus, et adversarii neutiquam possunt probare. Concedimus illis, Electionem esse tantum credentium; sed non credentium in praescientia Divina antecedenter ad ipsam electionem, sed credentium in praescientia Divina consequenter, et virtute gratiae in electione illis praeparatae et destinatae, juxta illud Augustini De Praed. Sanct. cap. 18, Ideo tales eramus futuri quia elegit ipse ut tales per gratiam essemus. Et cap. 10. Praedestinatione Deus praescivit quid fuerat ipse facturus. Consimilia habet cap. 17. Quae loca Augustini si quis consulat, et Arminiani hujus argumenti optimam solutionem, et Paulini hujus contextus optimam explicationem inveniet.

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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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