Two Dissertations · §687 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 14 Sol cont.: first knot — Vasquez: even if Christ ordered after predestination, in execution Christ's merit causes every predestination-effect; intending a sinner's salvation with means that first satisfy justice is mercy, not loving the sinner more than justice

So the objection that divine justice is shaken if we set God as electing some to life before ordaining Christ to expiate sins — that scruple can be loosed. First, with the subtle Doctor: however Christ and his merits toward men were ordered after predestination, yet in execution Christ's merit is the cause of every effect flowing from predestination — so nothing is done against God's justice in the elect's salvation. Of mere mercy to intend a sinner's salvation, and from that intention to provide him such means that it is never done before justice is satisfied, is not to love the sinner more than justice — it is to will to exercise free mercy toward the sinner rather than due justice.

Latin

Quod igitur objectum fuit, labefactari Divinam justitiam, si ponamus Deum prius elegisse quosdam ad vitam, quam ordinaverit Christum ad expianda peccata, hic scrupulus dissolvi potest. Primo, si quis cum subtili Doctore respondeat, Utcunque Christus Christique merita erga homines ordinata fuerunt post praedestinationem, tamen cum in exsecutione meritum Christi sit causa cujuscunque effectus a praedestinatione manantis, nihil fit contra justitiam Dei in salute electorum. Nam ex mera misericordia intendere salutem alicujus peccatoris, atque ex hac intentione providere illi talia media, ut hoc minime fiat priusquam justitiae fuerit satisfactum, non est peccatorem magis amare quam justitiam, sed velle exercere gratuitam misericordiam erga peccatorem, potius quam debitam justitiam.

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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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