Two Dissertations · §720 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. IV close: their opinion that strips God of election/reprobation liberty under pretext of foreseen faith/unbelief is not true — we say with Paul God does all by counsel of his will (Eph. i. 11)

So their opinion is not agreeable to truth — those who, under pretext of foreseen faith and unbelief, plainly snatch from God the liberty of election and reprobation, and teach that the discrimination which has sorted men into elect and reprobate, as to singular persons, has contingently come about from men's antecedent and differing acts. We — if in anything, then especially in this election and preterition — say with the Apostle that God does all things by the counsel of his will (Eph. I. 11).

Latin

Non est ergo veritati consentanea illorum opinio, qui electionis et reprobationis libertatem, sub praetextu praevisae fidei et infidelitatis, Deo plane eripiunt; et quod homines in electos et reprobatos dispeccati, id discriminis quoad personas singulares ex antecedaneis et discriminatis hominum actibus contingenter evenisse docent. Nos, si ulla in re, tum praecipue in hac electione et praeteritione, cum Apostolo dicimus, Deum facere omnia ex consilio voluntatis suae, Ephes. i. 11.

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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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