Two Dissertations · §452 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 4: from the difference of divine vocation — Jesuits and Arminians forced to grant it

Fourth argument: from the difference of divine calling — which even Jesuits and Arminians must grant. If God calls some with a peculiar vocation (Paul's vocation according to purpose, Rom. 8:28; Prosper's special vocation; Augustine's vocation that makes a believer, and vocation according to purpose by which God fulfills what he predestined, and hidden grace no hard heart refuses; the Jesuits' congruent and high vocation) — if that calling is of all the elect and of none but the elect, then God clearly predestined them with a will that goes before any foresight of their faith.

Latin

Quarto, disputamus a discrimine vocationis Divinae, quam ipsi Jesuitas atque Arminiani coguntur agnoscere. Sic autem instituitur haec ratio nostra: Si Deus quosdam vocat peculiari quadam vocatione (quam Apostolus, Rom. viii. 28, vocat vocationem secundum propositum; quam Prosper specialem vocationem, De vocat. Gent. 2. 23; Augustinus, vocationem qua fit credens, De Praed. Sanct. cap. 16, et vocationem secundum propositum, qua Deus implet quod praedestinavit, ibid. cap. 17, et gratiam occultam quae a nullo duro corde respuitur, ibid. cap. 8; quam denique ipsi Jesuitae vocationem congruentem et altam indigitant) — si inquam sit talis omnium electorum et non nisi electorum vocatio, tum clarum est Deum eosdem praedestinasse voluntate praevisam illorum fidem antecedente.

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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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