Two Dissertations · §394 · John Davenant

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol close: faith antecedent to execution not to eternal will; Minor — temporal prereqs

Peter as faithful and purged of sins is antecedent to executing what was willed — acquiring salvation, by God's decree — but not antecedent to God's will to save Peter, who decreed both: to save Peter, and to gift him faith before he is saved. Nor does that unsettle divine immutability: something may be decreed as prior to the actual production of the thing decreed which is not prior to God's inward volition about producing it. Reason: the effect of salvation in the predestinated subject and the decree to give salvation in the predestinating will are diverse things and do not require the same prior causes or conditions. On the Minor: many things are prerequired for someone to be saved in time that were not prerequired for eternal election to salvation — rather means later conferred on the predestinated so he is led through to salvation.

Latin

Erit jam consideratio Petri ut fidelis et a peccatis purgati antecedanea ad exsecutionem rei volitae; salutis scilicet acquisitionem, idque ex decreto Dei: sed non erit antecedanea ad ipsam voluntatem Dei de Petro servando, qui utrumque decrevit, et servare Petrum, et priusquam servetur fide illum donare. Neque immutabilitatem Divinae naturae labefactat quod ponitur, decernere aliquid tanquam praecedaneum ad rei decretae actualem productionem, quod non est praecedaneum ad internam Dei de re producenda volitionem. Ratio manifesta est; Quia Effectum salutis in subjecto praedestinato et decretum salutis dandae in voluntate praedestinantis sunt res diversae, nec easdem causas aut conditiones previas requirunt. De Minore nil aliud dico, quam multa praerequiri ut quis in tempore salvatur, quae non erant praerequisita ut ab aeterno ad salutem eligeretur, sed potius media praedestinato postmodum conferenda ut ad salutem perduceretur.

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About this text

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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