Two Dissertations · §377 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol cont: John 15:16 — we did not choose; do not confuse destined and temporal adoption

Sol. (cont.) Augustine nearly walks this first chapter of Ephesians in explaining it. Only a few notes: the election the Lord meant by You did not choose me, but I chose you — and faith itself does not come first. He chose us not because we believed, but that we may believe, so that we might not be said to have chosen him first. So they dangerously confuse destined adoption in the eternal act of divine election with finished adoption in the temporal effect of efficacious vocation.

Latin

Sol. (cont.) Augustinus fere hoc caput primum ad Ephesios explicando percurrit. Apponam solummodo haec paucula. Electionem quam significavit Dominus dicens, Non vos me elegistis, sed ego vos elegi; nec fides ipsa praecedit. Non enim quia credidimus, sed ut credamus elegit nos, ne priores eum elegisse dicamur. Periculoso igitur errore confundunt destinatam adoptionem in aeterno actu electionis Divinae cum perfecta adoptione in temporali effectu vocationis efficacis.

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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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