Two Dissertations · §465 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 7: Lessius — complete predestination rare in Scripture; hangs on perseverance

Among recent Jesuits, Lessius presses it more openly: Scripture barely mentions complete predestination, he says, because it hangs not on bare good pleasure but on human perseverance. He even teaches that God's intention for the number of the saved was not absolute before foresight of the world's end.

Latin

Atque ex nuperis Jesuitis Lessius, qui magis aperte hanc causam egit, confidenter asserit, De completa praedestinatione nullam aut raram esse mentionem in Scripturis, quia haec non pendet ex nudo Dei beneplacito, sed ex perseverantia humana. Quinetiam docet, Intentionem Dei de numero salvandorum non fuisse absolutam ante praevisionem finis mundi.

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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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