Two Dissertations · §375 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol: eternal destinatio κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν — not according to foresight of faith

And it does the Major no good to say there is no sonship-adoption except through faith. Grant the point: there is still an eternal destination of certain persons unto adoption according to the good pleasure of his will (Eph. 1:5), not according to foresight of our faith.

Latin

Nec facit quicquam ad confirmationem Majoris, quod nulla est adoptio in filios, nisi per fidem. Nam licet nulla sit adoptio nisi per fidem, est tamen aeterna destinatio certarum personarum εἰς υἱοθεσίαν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, Eph. i. 5. et non secundum praevisionem fidei nostrae.

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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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