Two Dissertations · §434 · John Davenant

Cap. V Obj. 8 Sol close: faith and perseverance flow from election — Cap. V Arminian objections end

Indeed from God's revealed word it is rightly deduced that both faith and perseverance in faith depend on a preceding election or ordination unto life. So Acts 13:48 — as many as were ordained to eternal life believed — and Matt. 24:24 — seducers would draw even the elect into apostasy if it were possible. That some believe, and that believers do not spring back from faith, flows from antecedent election — not, as Arminius wants, that foresight of their believing and persevering is what makes their election flow before others. We will not heap more objections from Arminius's writings; these scattered, the rest of the same flour are easy to dissolve. We come at last to set out our defense and strengthen it with arguments.

Latin

Imo ex revelato Dei verbo recte deducitur, tum fidem, tum in fide perseverantiam ex praeeunte electione sive ad vitam ordinatione dependere. Huc spectant illa, Actor. xiii. 48. Crediderunt, quotquot ordinati erant ad vitam aeternam. Matth. xxiv. 24. Seductores in apostasiam pertraherent, si possibile esset, ipsos electos. Quod igitur quidam credunt, et quod credentes a fide non resiliunt, id ex antecedente electione dimanat: non, ut vult Arminius, quod quidem praevidentur credituri et in fide perseveraturi, exinde eorundem prae aliis electio dimanat. Plures ex Arminii scriptis objectiones non congeremus, quia hisce dissipatis, facile est et reliquas omnes, quae ejusdem farinae sunt, dissolvere. Veniemus igitur tandem ad defensionem nostram exponendam, et argumentis roborandam.

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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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