Two Dissertations · §479 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 10: Rom. 9 — Jacob and Esau; objection of injustice referred to Rom. 11:33-34

Paul shows it in Rom. 9: after stating Jacob's gratuitous election and Esau's being passed by, he at once thrusts off the objection human reason prompts — that if by such good pleasure one unborn brother is loved and the other hated before either did good or evil, there is injustice with God (v. 14). He solves it by not solving it: he sends it up to the inscrutable height of divine wisdom and judgment (Rom. 11:33-34).

Latin

Ostentum est hoc ab Apostolo, Rom. ix. ubi gratuita Jacobi electione et Esavi praeteritione declarata, statim amolitur illam objectionem, quam humana ratio suggerit, nimirum, Posito tali beneplacito, secundum quod nondum natis fratribus, priusquam nihil fecissent boni vel mali, unus diligatur, alter odio habeatur, injustitiam quandam esse apud Deum, vers. 14. Quam objectionem non solvendo solvit, dum ad inscrutabilem altitudinem sapientiae ac judicii Divini referendam docet, Rom. xi. vers. 33. 34.

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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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