Two Dissertations · §384 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 7: τρόπος of mercy and justice is the one true predestination — Rom. 9:22

Arg. 7. The τρόπος by which the Lord shows his mercy in some and his justice in others is the true and only predestination. But the decree to save believers on one side and condemn unbelievers on the other is such a τρόπος. Therefore that decree is the true and only predestination. They say Contraremonstrants admit the Major; the Minor they prove from Rom. 9:22, where vessels of mercy and of wrath mean believers and unbelievers.

Latin

Arg. 7. Τρόπος secundum quem Dominus Deus in aliis ostendit suam misericordiam, in aliis justitiam, est vera et unica praedestinatio; Atqui decretum salvandi credentes ex una, condemnandi incredulos ex altera parte, est talis τρόπος: Ergo hoc decretum est vera et unica praedestinatio. Dicunt Majorem ab ipsis Contraremonstrantibus admitti: Minorem probari ex Rom. ix. 22. ubi per vasa misericordiae et irae intelliguntur credentes et increduli.

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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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