Two Dissertations · §372 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol close: love to eternal life in Christ true of introduction, false of praedestinatio

Arminius urges that God loves no one to eternal life except in Christ — as he reads it, except considered faithful and already inserted into Christ, and so elects none except as faithful. That is true of the introduction itself to eternal life, false of predestination. In that sense God loves to eternal life all he decreed before the world's foundations to give to Christ to be made alive and saved. Those given to be made alive are not considered already made alive and faithful, but dead in sins and still unbelieving. In a word: God chose us in Christ not because he viewed us as already in Christ by our faith before election, but because with respect to Christ the Mediator all who are predestinated are predestinated to eternal life.

Latin

Quod autem Arminius urget, Deum neminem amare ad vitam aeternam nisi in Christo, hoc est, ut ille interpretatur, nisi consideratum ut fidelem, et jam Christo insertum, ac proinde neminem eligere nisi qua fidelem; id de ipsa introductione ad vitam aeternam verum est, sed de praedestinatione falsum. Nam Deus illos omnes hoc sensu ad vitam aeternam amat, quos Christo vivificandos et servandos ante jacta mundi fundamenta dare decrevit. Hi autem qui dantur vivificandi, non considerantur a Deo ut vivificati et fideles, sed ut in peccatis mortui et adhuc infideles. Ut absolvam verbo; Deus dicitur nos elegisse in Christo, non quia consideravit nos tanquam per fidem nostram in Christo existentes, antequam eligeremur, sed quia cum respectu ad Christum Mediatorem ad vitam aeternam praedestinantur quotquot praedestinantur.

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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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