Two Dissertations · §376 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol close: faith is effect of εὐδοκία — Matt. 11:26; Augustine De praed. Sanct. 13, 19

Believers' faith — what sets them off from unbelievers — is not an antecedent of this divine good pleasure but its effect (Matt. 11:26). Augustine's De praedestinatione sanctorum 13 and 19 carefully opens these very Pauline words the Remonstrants press.

Latin

Nam fides credentium, qua distinguuntur a non credentibus, non consideratur ut antecedaneum hujus Divinae εὐδοκίας, sed effectum, Matth. xi. 26. Videndus est Augustinus De Praedestinatione Sanctorum cap. 13. et 19. Ubi accurate explicat haec ipsa verba Paulina quae urgentur a Remonstrantibus.

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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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