Two Dissertations · §390 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: conclusion does not force foresight-election; Major mixes Decernere and Servare

Sol. The conclusion does not directly contradict us. What they needed was: therefore God elected to glory only the faithful as faithful, from foresight of that faith. Their conclusion — he decreed from eternity to save only the faithful as such — makes faith an antecedent condition for the external conferring of decreed salvation (which we grant), not for God's internal destinating decree (which they needed to prove). On the Major: two words are mixed in bad faith — one names destination to salvation in the divine mind, the other leading to salvation in external execution. Decernere looks to the eternal intrinsic act of will; Servare to the extrinsic temporal effect.

Latin

Sol. Conclusionem dicimus non directe contradicere sententiae nostrae. Conclusum enim oportuit, Ergo Deus solos fideles, et qua fideles, ex praevisione hujus fidei elegit ad gloriam. Illa autem conclusio, Ergo solos fideles ab aeterno decrevit, qua tales servare, ponit fidem antecedaneam conditionem quoad ipsam externam collationem decretae salutis; quod nos non negamus; non autem quoad ipsum internum decretum Dei ad salutem destinantis; quod probatum oportuit. Ad Majoris ventilationem accedamus. Dico in illa commisceri, et mala fide copulari duo vocabula, quorum unum designat ipsam destinationem ad salutem in mente Divina; alterum perductionem ad salutem in exsecutione externa. Nam verbum Decernere respicit actum voluntatis Divinae aeternum et intrinsecum; verbum Servare respicit effectum extrinsecum et temporalem.

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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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