Two Dissertations · §408 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 2 Sol: will to build precedes coaptation; eternal life given vs destinated

The craftsman's first will to build was not born from foresight of fitting stones and timbers — the reverse: from the will to build followed that first joining of stones and timbers. Likewise eternal life produced outwardly and conferred on Peter or Paul presupposes many things that eternal life as destinated to them in God's secret will does not prerequire. To destinate to life is an immanent act in God's mind; to give life or lead to life is a work tending outward on the creature. The former is finished by the sole act of the divine will; the latter is not finished without many creaturely actions intervening, prerequired by divine ordination.

Latin

Non enim ex praevisa coaptatione lapidum et lignorum nascebatur prima voluntas aedificandi in mente artificis; sed vice versa, ex voluntate aedificandi sequebatur illa prima lapidum et lignorum coagmentatio. Pari ratione, vita aeterna in effectu externo producta, et Petro aut Paulo collata, multa praesupponit quae vita aeterna ut in arcana Dei voluntate illis destinata non praerequirit. Destinare ad vitam, est actus immanens in mente Dei; dare vitam vel perducere ad vitam, est opus ad extra tendens in creaturam: illud perficitur et absolvitur solo actu voluntatis Divinae; hoc non perficitur nisi intervenientibus multis creaturae actionibus ex ordinatione Divina praerequisitis.

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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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