Two Dissertations · §416 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 4 Sol: eternal will to save ≠ all that concurs in the consummated external act

Sol. I answer: not everything that concurs in the will to save as consummated in the external act also concurs in the eternal will to save enclosed in election's secret purpose. We deny the Major's consequence. God never had a will to save anyone without satisfaction of his justice; yet he had a will to give certain ones to Christ, to give them faith by which that union would be made, and by which, with that faith mediating, he would be efficaciously satisfied for them through Christ's death — all of this antecedent to foresight of faith as already certainly and infallibly existing in them, yet not without foresight, nor by excluding foresight of faith to be infallibly imparted to them from God's grace.

Latin

Sol. Respondeo, Non concurrere ad voluntatem aeternam servandi in arcano electionis proposito inclusam, illa omnia quae concurrunt ad voluntatem servandi in ipso actu externo consummatam. Negamus igitur Majoris consequentiam, atque dicimus, Deum nunquam habuisse voluntatem servandi quenquam absque satisfactione justitiae suae; habuisse tamen voluntatem dandi quosdam Christo, dandi illis fidem per quam unio haec fieret, et per quam mediante hac fide Deo pro illis per Christi mortem efficaciter satisfaceret: atque haec omnia antecedenter ad praevisionem fidei ut in illis certe et infallibiliter existentis; non tamen absque praevisione, aut excludendo praevisionem fidei illis ex gratia Dei infallibiliter impertiendae.

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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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