Two Dissertations · §683 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 14 Sol cont.: love of justice requires no one be loved in Christ unto actual fruitful share of salvation before persevering faith — yet may be loved unto eternal preparation of salvation before being considered as believing

To put our answer in few words: love of justice requires that no one be loved in Christ unto salvation unless he has apprehended him by faith. Take that in this sense: he is not loved unto actual fruitful share of salvation before he has persevered in faith — yet he can be loved unto the eternal preparation of salvation in God's mind and will before he is considered as believing and persevering in that faith. For the very preparation of faith and perseverance are marks of divine love: they are prepared before they are infallibly foreseen in Peter as infallibly about to be. And these saving gifts are prepared to be infallibly conferred on singular persons only from a love that looks to their salvation. In that preparation God is not to be thought to violate the laws of his justice, but to unfold the riches of his special mercy.

Latin

Ut in pauca contraham responsionem nostram, dico, Amorem justitiae requirere ut nemo in Christo ad salutem ametur, nisi qui fide ipsum apprehenderit; sed hoc sensu, ut minime ametur ad actualem et fructuosam participationem salutis priusquam in fide perseveraverit, amari tamen possit ad aeternam salutis in mente et voluntate Divina preparationem priusquam consideretur ut credens et in hac fide perseverans. Nam ipsa praeparatio fidei et perseverantiae sunt amoris Divini argumenta: praeparantur autem prius quam infallibiliter praevidentur in Petro infallibiliter futurae. Atque praeparantur haec dona salutifera singularibus personis infallibiliter conferenda, non nisi ex amore ad salutem illorum spectante. Neque in hac praeparatione Deus violare putandus est leges justitiae suae, sed explicare opes specialis misericordiae suae.

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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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