Two Dissertations · §383 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 6 Sol close: actual faith not foresight-faith; invert — nexus not Remonstrant order

Add: wherever Elect is given to the faithful, actual faith is meant — not faith merely in God's foresight before the world's foundations, which the Remonstrants urge. So they wrongly infer: Elect and believer are the same subjects in Scripture's phrasing, therefore election is from foresight of faith. Rather: therefore to all the elect in their time saving faith is given. If the argument had force I could invert it: Believers, when salvation is in view, always means the elect; therefore no saving faith except of the elect; therefore faith arises from antecedent election. From such word-use you may conclude only that faith and election have a nexus — not whether foresight of faith precedes election as a prerequired condition (as Remonstrants will), or faith follows election as a disposition to be produced in all the elect at the due time. The cited places do not settle that; weighing them one by one is needless.

Latin

Hisce accedat, In illis omnibus locis ubi Electorum nomen tribuitur fidelibus, fidem actualem semper denotari, non illam ante jacta mundi fundamenta in sola Dei praescientia consideratam, quam urgent Remonstrantes. Non recte igitur inferunt; Electus et credens sunt subjecta eadem secundum phrasin Scripturarum: Ergo Electio fit ex praevisa fide; sed, Ergo omnibus electis suo tempore datur fides salutifera. Possem facile hoc argumentum invertere, et contra adversarios sic retorquere, si quid roboris in se haberet, Vox Credentium, cum de credentibus ad salutem agitur, perpetuo intelligitur de electis: Ergo nulla est fides ad salutem nisi electorum; Ergo fides oritur ex antecedente electione. Sed ex tali usu vocabulorum nihil aliud concludi debet, quam fidem et electionem habere inter se quendam nexum: sed utrum ita connectantur ut fides praevisa antecedat electionem tanquam conditio in eligendo praerequisita, (quod volunt Remonstrantes) an ut fides subsequatur electionem tanquam dispositio in omnibus electis debito tempore producenda, ex locis Scripturae allatis non constat. Ea igitur sigillatim expendere minime necessarium est.

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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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