Two Dissertations · §430 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 8: none can be saved without faith — therefore election from foresight faith

Obj. 8. Whoever by God's will cannot be saved without faith is not predestinated to be saved without faith. There is no secret will of God adverse to the revealed. The revealed says, I will not save Peter without faith — so there is no secret will decreeing to save that same Peter without faith. Therefore election unto salvation is from foresight faith.

Latin

Obj. 8. Qui secundum Dei voluntatem absque fide salvari non potest, non praedestinatur salvandus sine fide. Nulla est enim arcana Dei voluntas quae adversatur revelatae. Revelata dicit, Nolo Petrum salvare absque fide: Non est ergo arcana voluntas quae decernit eundem Petrum servare absque fide: ac proinde electio ad salutem est ex fide praevisa.

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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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