Two Dissertations · §51 · John Davenant

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 3: No pardon of uncommitted sins; blood heals only the believing sick

Ratio 3. If by the very merit of Christ’s death all sins had been forgiven to human beings before they believed in Christ, and so all had been restored into the state of grace and reconciliation by the mere fact itself, it would follow that no one is born a child of wrath — which is diametrically contrary to the Apostle’s words just alleged from Ephesians 2:3.

Further: since the merit of Christ, in God’s acceptation, has infinite and eternal efficacy, this inconvenience would also follow — that the sins of human beings are remitted before they are committed, and expiated before they are perpetrated — if without any intervening act of ours, from the merit of Christ alone, the remission of sins and the actual reconciliation of human beings were to arise. But this is plainly impossible.

For just as a medicine which, as to its implanted efficacy and virtue, can heal leprosy, yet does not actually heal this or that human being unless he has already become a leper and takes the medicine named: so the blood of Christ, which can heal any human being, yet does not actually heal, cleanse, or reconcile anyone to God unless that one is already contaminated by sin and is believing.

In no way, then, are they to be heard who either philosophize that all human beings promiscuously are reconciled and placed in the state of grace by the passion of Christ itself, or contend that all the elect, by the sole power of that same passion, have all their sins forgiven them from eternity — since there is no forgiveness of sins except of sins committed, and no forgiveness of committed sins is to be hoped for by any except believers.

Most excellently and truly the reverend of pious memory, the Bishop of Salisbury: An already-made remission of future sins ought not to be believed. For although to God they are as already done which he from all eternity disposed should be done, yet for us they are not to be received otherwise than according to that mode of dispensation by which, decreed from eternity, they are to be completed for us in time and brought into act. Thus far he. We therefore must not dream of a remission of sins, or of a reconciliation already obtained, except according to the mode of dispensation decreed by God: that is, unless we first truly repent and believe in the Mediator.

Latin

Rat. 3. Si ipso merito mortis Christi omnia peccata hominibus condonata essent, antequam illi in Christum crederent, atque sic omnes essent in statum gratiae et reconciliationis restituti ipso facto, sequeretur neminem nasci filium irae, quod est e diametro contrarium verbis Apostoli modo allegatis, ex Ephes. ii. 3. Porro, cum Christi meritum in acceptatione Dei habeat efficaciam infinitam et aeternam, illud etiam incommodi sequeretur, Peccata hominum prius remitti quam committi, prius expiari quam perpetrari, si absque ulla media actione nostra, ex solo merito Christi, remissio peccatorum et actualis hominum reconciliatio nasceretur. Sed hoc plane impossibile est. Nam sicuti pharmacum, quod quantum ad insitam suam efficaciam et virtutem potest lepram sanare, tamen non actu sanat hunc aut illum hominem, nisi jam factum leprosum, et praedictum pharmacum sumentem; ita sanguis Christi, qui sanare potest quemvis hominem, non actu tamen quenquam sanat, purgat aut Deo reconciliat, nisi jam contaminatum peccato, et credentem. Nullo igitur modo audiendi sunt, sive qui omnes homines promiscue reconciliatos, et in statum gratiae repositos ipsa Christi passione philosophantur, sive qui contendunt omnes Electos virtute sola ejusdem passionis habere omnia sua peccata ab aeterno sibi condonata; cum nulla sit condonatio peccatorum nisi commissorum, neque commissorum ulla ullis speranda nisi credentibus. Optime et verissime reverendus ac piae memoriae Sarisburiensis, Futurorum peccatorum facta jam remissio credi non debet. Quamquam enim Deo quidem tanquam jam facta sint, quae ille ut fiant omni ab aeternitate disposuit, nobis tamen non aliter accipienda sunt, nisi secundum modum illum dispensationis, quo ab aeterno decreta, et in tempore complenda nobis, et in actum perducenda sunt. Hactenus ille. Nobis igitur non est somnianda remissio peccatorum, aut reconciliatio obtenta, nisi secundum modum dispensationis a Deo decretae: id est, nisi prius vere poeniteamus, et in Mediatorem credamus.

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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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