Two Dissertations · §450 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 3: second Hague reply — God regards faith as medium to life, not condition of election

Second reply: even if Scripture nowhere says in so many words that God elected us on condition we believe, you still cannot conclude he had no regard to faith in electing. We answer: not only is it missing in so many words — there are no equivalent words, nothing from which it can rightly be drawn. We do not deny every regard to faith in electing God. He regards aith he will ingenerate in the elect as the medium by which one reaches life — not as a condition men have already performed or must perform in order to reach election itself.

Latin

Secundo respondent, Etiamsi totidem verbis in Scripturis non reperiatur, Deum nos elegisse cum conditione si in illum credamus, ex eo tamen non posse concludi, Deum in electione non respexisse ad fidem. At regerimus, non modo totidem verbis, sed nullis aequipollentibus, nullis unde id recte deduci potest, hoc exprimi in Scriptura. Neque tamen negamus omnem respectum aut conditionem fidei in Deo eligente. Respicit enim et considerat fidem a se electis ingenerandam, tanquam medium quo pervenitur ad vitam: non respicit tanquam conditionem ab hominibus antecedenter praestitam aut praestandam, qua mediante pervenitur ad ipsam electionem.

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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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