Two Dissertations · §456 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 4 close: special vocation of mercy — election ad fidem, not ex fide

Sum: there is a special vocation of mercy given to some — not because they were already counted faithful, but because they were predestined to become faithful. It flows from an antecedent will that infallibly destines them to eternal life. Not everyone has that vocation — only the elect. So election hangs on God's good pleasure, not on human act. So it is unto faith, not from faith. By this calling every predestined will is stirred to believe efficaciously — even if so hostile and fierce that he persecutes believers (Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.19).

Latin

In summam redigo hanc rationem. Est quaedam vocatio specialis misericordiae, quae administratur hominibus quibusdam, non quia fuerunt considerati ut fideles, sed quia praedestinati ut fierent fideles. Haec vocatio fluxit ab antecedanea voluntate tales ad vitam aeternam infallibiliter destinante. Non omnium talis est vocatio, sed tantum electorum. Ergo electio ex beneplacito Dei non ex actu hominum dependet. Ergo est ad fidem, non ex fide. Nam hac vocatione voluntas cujusliber praedestinati, ut credat efficaciter, excitatur, etiam si tam sit aversus et ferox ut credentes persequatur, August. Contra 2. Epist. Pelag. lib. 1. cap. 19.

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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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