Two Dissertations · §392 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: king and beggar — robes precede crowning, not the first destination

An example: some conditions can be required beforehand so that Peter is saved or brought into the heavenly kingdom, without being required beforehand so that he is elected or destined by God to eternal life. Suppose a king sees a beggar in rags, foul with ulcers, yet from mere good pleasure decrees to adopt him and raise him to the kingdom's crown — and also orders that before crowning he be clothed in royal garments and purged of uncleanness, and not crowned until thus purged and clothed. Who does not see those fair garments and the purging were decreed and prerequired as antecedent to crowning, yet not as antecedent motives for the first destination of kingdom and crown?

Latin

Exemplo illustrabimus ea quae dicta sunt, et ostendemus quasdam conditiones requiri posse ut previas, quo Petrus servetur, vel in regnum caeleste introducatur, quae non requiruntur ut previae, quo eligatur, sive ad vitam aeternam a Deo destinetur. Ponamus Regem aliquem, conspecto mendico pannis obsito, ulceribus foetido, decernere nihilominus ex mero suo beneplacito hunc talem adoptare, et ad regni coronam evehere; insuper tamen ordinare ut antequam coronetur, regalibus vestimentis induatur, et ab immunditie sua purgetur, neque coronetur nisi prius ita fuerit purgatus et indutus. Quis non videt pulchra haec vestimenta et purgationem decreta et praerequisita fuisse tanquam praecedanea ad actum coronandi, et tamen non fuisse praerequisita tanquam praecedanea motiva ad primam destinationem regni et coronae?

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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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