Two Dissertations · §391 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: faith precedes saving Peter, not the eternal decree — head of the error

God's internal act does not have the causes or require the antecedent conditions that the external effect of salvation requires. He does not save Peter unless Peter's faith precedes; yet he decrees to save Peter in the free eternal good pleasure of his will — not with that faith as a condition for constituting the decree, but as a condition for timely temporal effecting of what was decreed. The error's head: the antecedent quality of faith, which should be joined to the thing decreed and set before it only in execution, is joined to God's decreeing act and set before the decree as an antecedent motive.

Latin

Jam vero actus Dei internus non habet eas causas, nec requirit eas conditiones praecedaneas, quas habet et praerequirit ipsum externum salutis praedictae effectum. Non servat Petrum Deus nisi fide ejus praecedente; at decernit servare Petrum in gratuito et aeterno voluntatis suae beneplacito, non praecedente hac fide tanquam conditione ad decreti ipsius constitutionem, sed tanquam conditione ad rei decretae opportunam temporalemque effectionem. Caput ergo erroris est, quod qualitas fidei antecedanea, quae cum re decreta conjungi debuit, et eidem in sola exsecutione praeponi, cum actu Dei decernentis conjungatur, et decreto ejus tanquam antecedaneum motivum praeponatur.

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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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