Two Dissertations · §69 · John Davenant

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect: Eph 1 seems to make acceptance eternal before faith

Some Scripture places can also be brought forward that seem, as to the elect, to assert an actual reconciliation with God—and an eternal one—before their faith and repentance.

Ephesians 1:4 says God elected them before the world’s foundation, and verse 6 that he had them accepted in his beloved Son. So, the objection runs, they were elect, and already actually justified and reconciled from eternity. Their reconciliation on God’s side was not made after faith was applied to the gospel; rather, what had already been done before the world’s foundations were laid then began to be manifested and revealed.

Latin

Proferri etiam possunt ex Scripturis loca nonnulla quae videntur quoad electos actualem cum Deo reconciliationem, eamque aeternam, asserere; ante fidem & paenitentiam eorundem. Ephes. i. 4. Deus dicitur eos elegisse ante mundi constitutionem, & versu 6. acceptos habuisse in dilecto suo Filio: Fuerunt igitur electi, & jam actu justificati & reconciliati ab aeterno: neque reconciliatio illorum ex parte Dei post fidem Evangelio adhibitam facta est, sed potius tum incepit manifestari & revelari, quod factum fuit ante jacta mundi fundamenta.

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About this text

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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