Two Dissertations · §217 · John Davenant

Cap. 1 prol. IV: common vs distinguishing — Davenant denies foresight discriminators

You already see the great difference between those earlier subject-conditions we called common, and these later ones we call distinguishing. Rational nature, and nature under sin, is presupposed in the predestined and the reprobate so that nothing in them is set as cause, reason, or occasion of the divide. Good and evil works, faith and unbelief, are instead set as foresight conditions in people so that the very divide between the predestined and the reprobate proceeds according to them. We grant the earlier conditions as prerequisites — so that a subject can, commonly and without distinction, lie under God as he predestines and reprobates. But these later ones, which many try to fix in place, we flatly deny: they are not presupposed or foreseen by God in the person to be predestined or reprobated, nor do different foresight varieties of them always drive different acts of predestination and reprobation onto different persons.

Latin

Videtis jam magnum discrimen inter priores illas conditiones subjecti, quas communes appellavimus, & has posteriores, quas distinguentes nuncupamus. Nam natura Rationalis, & Peccato subdititia, praesupponitur in subjecto praedestinato & reprobato, ut in illis nulla ponatur causa, ratio, aut occasio discriminis; sed Bona opera & Mala, Fides & Infidelitas, ita ponuntur praevisae condiciones in hominibus, ut secundum illas procedat ipsum discrimen hominum praedestinatorum aut reprobatorum. Quanquam ergo concedamus priores conditiones praerequisitas, ut subjectum communiter & promiscue possit subjacere Deo praedestinanti & reprobanti, tamen hasce posteriores, quas multi stabilire conantur, prorsus pernegamus praesupponi & praevideri a Deo in homine praedestinando aut reprobando, aut pro earum diversitate praevisa diversos actus praedestinationis atque reprobationis tendere semper in diversas personas.

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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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