Two Dissertations · §682 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 14 Sol: first inconvenience fails — electing Peter/Paul to infallible share of Christ before foreseeing free will inclined is supreme love of justice, not loving them more than justice

That premised, our view is not caught in those two inconveniences. Not the first: God is not charged with loving Peter or Paul more than his own justice if from eternity he elected and designated them to infallible share in Christ, faith, and salvation before he foresaw their free choice efficaciously and perseveringly inclined — through the offer of sufficient grace — to embrace Christ, conceive faith, and take the way of salvation. Nay, this argues supreme love of justice in God: that Peter and Paul, whom of mere mercy he loved exceedingly unto salvation, he yet would not lead to that destined salvation unless such means were used by which his justice would first be satisfied.

Latin

Hoc praemisso, sententia nostra praedictis duobus incommodis haud implicatur. Non priore; Quia Deus non arguitur magis amasse Petrum aut Paulum quam suam justitiam, si illos ab aeterno elegit et designavit ad infallibilem participationem Christi, fidei, et salutis, antequam praevidit liberum illorum arbitrium per oblationem gratiae sufficientis ad Christum amplexandum, fidem concipiendam, salutisque viam capiessendam, efficaciter et perseveranter inclinatum. Imo hoc arguit summum amorem justitiae in Deo, quod Petrum et Paulum, quos ad salutem ex mera misericordia eximie dilexit, noluerit tamen ad hanc salutem illis destinatam perducere nisi talibus mediis adhibitis quibus justitiae suae prius satisfaceret.

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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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