Two Dissertations · §433 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 8 Sol: revealed will does not make faith a motive of the eternal good pleasure

Nor does our distinction set the secret will against the revealed. The revealed does say, I will not save Peter without faith — namely preceding faith as a means ordained to effect his salvation. It does not say, I will not save Peter without preceding faith as a motive or condition for forming my eternal good pleasure about his salvation. So from the revealed will one cannot rightly deduce that Peter's election unto salvation was made from his antecedent faith.

Latin

Neque hac distinctione nostra collidimus arcanam voluntatem revelatae: Revelata siquidem dicit, Nolo Petrum salvare absque fide (scilicet praecedente, ut medio ad salutem ejus efficiendam ordinato): at revelata non dicit, Nolo Petrum servare absque fide praecedente tanquam motivo vel conditione ad formandum meum de ejusdem salute aeternum beneplacitum. Non igitur ex revelata Dei voluntate recte deducitur electio Petri ad salutem facta ex fide ejusdem antecedanea.

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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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