Two Dissertations · §468 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 8: first — perseverance from God's gift (Jer. 32:40; 2 Thess. 3:3), not bare free choice

Nothing here can be shaken. First: if persevering faith could be foreseen in those to whom God has not yet decreed perseverance, that great good would come from human choice, not God's gift. All Scripture protests — saints' perseverance flows from God's gift: I will put my fear in their heart, that they may not depart from me (Jer. 32:40); Faithful is God, who will establish you and keep you from evil (2 Thess. 3:3). Augustine, following Scripture, taught that the power and will to persevere is given by grace's largess to saints predestined into God's kingdom — and not to others. So Aquinas is right: God's loving will that someone have this good is why he has it before others (ST 1.23.4).

Latin

Nihil video in hoc argumento quod ullo modo possit labefactari aut in dubium vocari. Nam primo, si quis diceret fidem perseverantem posse in aliquibus praevideri quibus Deus hanc perseverantiam nondum decreverit donare, ille tantum bonum ab humano arbitrio, non a Divino munere arcesseret. At tota Scriptura reclamat, quae perseverantiam sanctorum ex dono Dei ostendit dimanare: Reverentiam mei indam animo ipsorum, ut non recedant a me, Jer. xxxii. 40. 2 Thess. iii. 3. Fidelis est Deus, qui stabiliet vos et tuebitur a malo. Et Augustinus secundum Scripturas clare docuit, hanc perseverandi possibilitatem et voluntatem Divinae gratiae largitate donari sanctis in regnum Dei praedestinatis, aliis non donari. Est ergo verissimum illud Aquinatis: Voluntas Dei qua vult hoc bonum alicui diligendo, est causa quod illud bonum ab eo prae aliis habeatur, Part. 1. qu. 23. art. 4.

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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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