Two Dissertations · §404 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 1 Sol: Arminius's own definition — faith prepared in predestination before foresight

Arminius himself, if consistent, could not deny that by this election/predestination love God embraces the elect before all foresight of faith in them. In Public Disputations, Thesis 15 On predestination (p. 153), he defines: it is God's good-pleasure decree in Christ by which from eternity he determined to justify, adopt, and gift eternal life to the faithful whom he decreed to gift with faith. In the Examination of Perkinsian Predestination he grants God does not foreknow men as about to believe before he has predestinated them to believe (p. 32), and adds the strong reason: he foreknew they would believe by his gift, which gift is prepared in predestination (p. 37). Elsewhere he puts a double matter of predestination: divine things (spiritual blessings) and the persons to whom their communication is predestinated. I ask: how does God elect from foresight of faith if in election itself the gift of faith is decreed and prepared for men? It is ridiculous to say he decrees and prepares faith for certain men in election, yet elects them from an antecedent intuition of faith preceding that election — as if he only then decreed the gift of faith to this or that person when he had already seen he would believe.

Latin

Ipse Arminius, si sibi constare vellet, non posset inficias ire, Deum hoc amore electionis sive praedestinationis complecti electos et praedestinatos ante omnem fidei in illis praevisionem. Nam in Disputationibus publicis, Thes. 15, De praedestinatione, pag. 153, praedestinationem sic definit, Est decretum beneplaciti Dei in Christo quo apud se ab aeterno statuit fideles, quos fide donare decrevit, justificare, adoptare, vita aeterna donare, &c. Et in Examine Praedest. Perkins. concedit Deum non praescire homines crediturus priusquam praedestinaverit ut credant, pag. 32. Atque adjungit hanc rationem optimam sane et validissimam, Praescivit enim, inquit, eos suo dono crediturus, quod donum in praedestinatione praeparatum est, pag. 37. Atque huc etiam spectat quod alibi materiam praedestinationis duplicem ponit: Res divinas (quae benedictionum spiritualium nomine continentur) et personas quibus illarum communicatio est hoc decreto praedestinata. Quaero, Quomodo Deus eligit et praedestinat ex praevisa hominum fide, si in ipsa electione sive praedestinatione donum fidei sit hominibus decretum et praeparatum? Ridiculum est enim dicere, Deum in electione decernere et praeparare fidem certis hominibus, et tamen eosdem homines eligere ex antecedente intuitu fidei hanc ipsam electionem praecedentis; quasi Deus tum demum decerneret donum fidei huic aut illi singulari personae, quando antea perspexerit illum crediturum.

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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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