Two Dissertations · §420 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 5 Sol: titles — eternal life a wage of faith; predestination never called a wage

On the titles we reply: Scripture calls eternal life a wage or crown of faith and obedience — never predestination itself a wage or crown of our faith or obedience. Eternal life is that wage because God gifts it as something to be rendered, by promise or stipulation, to believers who live holy lives. Predestination as a benefit is never shown as promised under any condition of faith coming first from us. These objections therefore fail.

Latin

De titulis respondemus: Vitam aeternam dici mercedem, sive coronam fidei et obedientiae, sed ipsam praedestinationem ad vitam nunquam dici mercedem aut coronam sive fidei sive obedientiae nostrae. Vita aeterna dicitur merces fidei et bonorum operum quia credentibus et sancte viventibus ex promissione sive stipulatione Divina reddenda donatur: at beneficium praedestinationis nunquam sub ulla conditione fidei a nobis antecedente promissum ostenditur. Frustra igitur haec objiciuntur.

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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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