Two Dissertations · §460 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 5: Arminius's four decrees — Mediator, believers, means, foresight of users

First: a decree to give a Mediator. Second: to save believers and perseverers for that Mediator's sake. Third: to administer the means needed for faith. Fourth: to save those he foresees will believe and persevere by those means. The first three cause no certainty of salvation for any one person — they are common, and in bare form can as well cover reprobates as elect.

Latin

Primo, ponit decretum de dando Mediatore. Secundo, adjungit aliud, de salvandis credentibus et perseverantibus propter hunc Mediatorem. Tertio, de administrandis mediis ad fidem necessariis. Quarto, de salvandis illis quos praevidet beneficio horum mediorum crediturus et perseveraturos. In tribus prioribus manifestum est nullam certitudinem salutis singulari personae causari; quia communia sunt, et aeque ad reprobos atque electos spectare possunt, quoad nudam decretorum formam.

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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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