Two Dissertations · §759 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. X: he who could bend Judas as Peter, yet destined the means to Peter not Judas, elected one and reprobated the other — Ambrose: God calls whom he deigns

Add this: he who knew and could apply to Judas as to Peter the means to bend him to faith and obedience and keep him in them to the end, yet from eternity destined and gave those means to Peter and neither destined nor gave them to Judas, elected one to salvation and passed the other by—that is, reprobated him. That is what Ambrose meant in the famous saying: God calls whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he wills—words Augustine weighs carefully (De gratia Christi contra Pelagium et Caelestium 1.46).

Latin

Hisce addo, Illum qui novit et potuit adhibere tam Judae quam Petro ea media, quibus ad fidem et obedientiam flecteretur, et in fide et obedientia ad extremum usque conservaretur, atque haec media Petro ab aeterno destinavit et donavit, Judae nec destinavit nec donavit, unum eorum elegisse ad salutem, alterum praeteriisse, id est, reprobasse. Hoc illud est quod Ambrosius celebri illo dicto innuabat, Deus quos dignatur vocat, et quem vult religiosum facit. Quae verba accurate expenduntur ab Augustino, De grat. Christi contra Pelag. et Caelest. lib. 1. cap. 46.

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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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