Two Dissertations · §592 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: ministers must seek to bring every hearer to Christ — Augustine De correptione et gratia 15

Finally it also follows that Gospel ministers' aim and labor — as Paul's did — ought to be to bring to Christ every one to whom they announce Christ's Gospel. As Augustine says with piety and prudence: not knowing who belongs to the number of the predestined and who does not, we ought to be so moved by charity that we will all to be saved (De corrept. Et grat. 15).

Latin

Denique et illud recte deducitur, Intentionem et operam ministrorum Evangelicorum eo spectare oportere, ac Pauli operam eo spectasse, ut eos omnes et singulos ad Christum adduceret, quibus Evangelium Christi annunciavit. Nam, ut pie et prudenter Augustinus, Nos nescientes quis pertineat ad praedestinatorum numerum, quis non pertineat, sic affici debemus charitatis affectu, ut omnes velimus salvos fieri, De corrupt. et grat. cap. 15.

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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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