Two Dissertations · §274 · John Davenant

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: sufficient aids fail for pagans/infants — Augustine De nat.

Those who put on God a good-pleasure will for everyone's salvation infer it from "sufficient helps for all" — yet they never prove that of pagans who never heard Christ's name or Gospel light, nor of their infants dying unbaptized (never mind the rest). Augustine says plainly many are damned who could not be justified and saved (On Nature and Grace 8–9).

Latin

Porro, qui Deo tribuunt hanc voluntatem beneplaciti circa omnium salutem, id inde colligunt, quod omnibus det sufficientia auxilia ad salutem obtinendam: quod tamen nec de Paganis, quibus Christi nomen & Evangelii lumen nunquam innotuit, nec de infantibus illorum qui absque baptismo moriuntur, (ut de aliis nihil dicam) unquam probabunt. Augustinus diserte docet, damnari multos qui justificari & salvari non potuerint, De Nat. & grat. cap. 8. & 9.

Report a mistake in this passage

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.

Printed text used

Also checked PDF of the 1650 (Latin · print facsimile)
Also checked DjVu machine-read text of the 1650 (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake