Two Dissertations · §441 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 1 close: Arminius's own definition — first ratio from theologians' consensus

Finally hear Arminius himself: Predestination is God's good-pleasure decree in Christ by which from eternity he determined to gift eternal life to the faithful whom he decreed to gift with faith. Predestination involves a double decree: I will give life to all the faithful; and I will give faith to these certain persons. Both depend on God's free pure mercy — neither on foresight faith or any human operation. Vainly then they put a foresight-faith condition before predestination, which all theologians in defining predestination itself acknowledge as free, and the spring of faith and every saving grace. Let this be our first reason — from the common consent of theologians in defining Predestination itself.

Latin

Postremo audiatur ipse Arminius; Praedestinatio, inquit, est decretum beneplaciti Dei in Christo, quo apud se ab aeterno statuit fideles, quos fide donare decrevit, vita aeterna donare. Hic in praedestinatione duplex decretum involvitur: unum, Volo cunctis fidelibus dare vitam: alterum, Volo hisce certis personis dare fidem. Utrumque ex Dei gratuita et pura misericordia, neutrum ex praevisa fide aut aliqua humana operatione, dependet. Frustra igitur fidei praevisae conditionem praemittunt praedestinationi, quam omnes Theologi in ipsa praedestinationis definitione agnoscunt esse gratuitam, et fidei omnisque gratiae salutiferae scaturiginem. Atque haec sit prima nostra ratio, petita a communi consensu Theologorum in definienda ipsa Praedestinatione.

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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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