Two Dissertations · §457 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 5: from election's inseparable help — certainty of causality, not bare science

Fifth argument: from election's necessary assistance — certainty of causality, not bare science

Latin

Quinto, ab adjutorio inseparabili electionis sive praedestinationis probamus illam non ex fide nostra sed ex mero Dei beneplacito pendere. Nam electio importat certitudinem salutis quoad hominem electum, eamque non nudae scientiae (nam sic Deo ab omni aeternitate certissima sunt, quae sunt maxime fortuita) sed causalitatis, praedestinatione ita operante, ut certo perducat praedestinatum ad vitam aeternam.

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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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