Two Dissertations · §422 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 6 Sol: Major's consequence wobbles — elect in Christ as members to be united

Sol. The Major's consequence wobbles. The election decree does tend toward a dead man lying in the mass of perdition — yet so that it decrees him life only as considered a member, by God's good pleasure, to be united to Christ and made alive through Christ. In that sense they are elected in Christ who are not yet considered grafted into Christ by faith.

Latin

Sol. Vacillat Majoris consequentia. Nam quamvis decretum electionis tendat in hominem mortuum ac in massa perditionis jacentem, ita tamen tendit, ut vitam ei non decernat nisi quatenus consideratur ut membrum, juxta Divinae voluntatis beneplacitum, Christo uniendum, et per Christum vivificandum. Atque hoc sensu, in Christo eliguntur qui nondum per fidem in Christum insiti considerantur.

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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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