Two Dissertations · §473 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 9: one ratio of predestination — Head and members alike

One ratio of predestination — Head and members, and members among themselves. If Christ's predestination to Mediator and Savior was gratuitous, not from foresight of merits, then much more must ours to the benefit of salvation be gratuitous. And if some of Christ's members were clearly predestined to eternal life with no regard to foresighted faith or perseverance, the same holds for all the rest. Predestination is uniform as to whether conditions are presupposed or not — that is beyond doubt.

Latin

Unica est ratio praedestinationis tum quoad Caput et membra, tum quoad membra inter se collata. Hoc est: Si praedestinatio Christi ad officium Mediatoris et Salvatoris fuerit gratuita, et non ex praevisione meritorum, tum multo magis praedestinatio nostri ad beneficium salutis gratuita esse debet. Porro, Si manifestum sit quaedam Christi membra ad vitam aeternam absque ullo respectu ad praevisae fidei aut perseverantiae conditionem fuisse praedestinata, tum idem statuendum est de reliquis omnibus. Praedestinationem enim, quoad conditiones praerequisitas aut non praerequisitas, uniformem esse, extra dubium est.

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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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