Two Dissertations · §406 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 2: actual gift of eternal life bound to believers — therefore election from foresight faith

Obj. 2. The actual gift of eternal life is no more bound than the will to give it. But the gift itself is bound to the faithful and presupposes antecedent faith. Therefore the will to give eternal life — which is nothing other than election — is likewise bound. So election is from foresight faith. Arminius and almost all who follow him build many arguments from this principle — frail and invalid.

Latin

Obj. 2. Actualis vitae aeternae datio non magis est adstricta quam ejusdem dandae volitio: Sed ipsa datio adstricta est ad fideles, et fidem antecedentem praesupponit: Ergo et volitio dandae vitae aeternae, quae nihil aliud est quam electio. Electio itaque est ex fide praevisa. Arminius quique Arminium sectantur fere omnes ex hoc principio multa exstruunt argumenta, sed caduca et invalida.

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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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