Two Dissertations · §485 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 11: Rom. 8:28 — all things work for good for the predestined and called

So also Paul, Rom. 8:28: all things work together for good for those who are predestined and called according to purpose — God's special providence so steering all things that what looks most hostile to their salvation still advances it.

Latin

Huc etiam tendit illud Apostoli, Rom. viii. 28: Omnia in bonum eorum cooperantur, qui praedestinati sunt, et secundum propositum vocati. Speciali nimirum Dei providentia ita res omnes dirigente, ut quae maxime infesta videantur illorum saluti, eandem nihilo minus promoveant.

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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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