Two Dissertations · §761 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. X close toward Corvinus: opposite for the elect — eternal saving will proves election/preterition; foresight cannot ground either special will or its denial

Conversely, of those made religious, faithful, persevering, and led to everlasting life, we may gather that from eternity God had that will which would efficaciously work all this in them. That will to save—and non-will, if one may so speak—plainly proves election of some and preterition of others. Finally: as it would be inept to claim that the special will to work faith, perseverance, and salvation in Peter flowed from foresight of Peter’s faith and perseverance, so it is no less false and inept to assert that the denied will to effect faith, repentance, and perseverance in Judas or any reprobate arose from foresight of his unbelief, impenitence, and final contempt of divine grace.

Latin

sicut e contra, quoad eos qui religiosi, fideles, perseverantes efficiuntur, et ad vitam aeternam perducuntur, colligere possumus ab aeterno adfuisse Deo illam voluntatem, quae haec omnia in illis efficaciter operaretur. Haec autem voluntas salvandi, et noluntas (si ita loqui liceat) electionem aliquorum et praeteritionem aliorum manifeste evincit. Denique, sicut ineptum esset obtendere hanc specialem voluntatem de fide, perseverantia et salute Petri operanda ex praevisa ejusdem Petri fide et perseverantia profluxisse, ita non minus falsum et ineptum est asserere, hanc negatam voluntatem efficiendi fidem, poenitentiam et perseverantiam in Juda, aut quolibet reprobato, ex praevisa ejusdem infidelitate, impoenitentia et finali gratiae Divinae contemptu originem habuisse.

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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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