Two Dissertations · §324 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol.: praedamnation rests on sin foresight; election and damnation not parallel

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But if reprobation means praedamning — deputing to destruction — I gladly grant that divine act rests on foresight of human sin. Election to glory and deputation to punishment are not on equal footing: God can destine the undeserving to glory from mere good pleasure, because he is good; he cannot destine the undeserving to punishment without intuition of sin, because he is just. Augustine marked that difference (Contra Jul. 3.18): God is good, God is just — he can free without good merits because he is good; he cannot damn without evil merits because he is just.

Latin

Verum si per reprobationem intelligatur actus praedamnandi, sive deputandi ad interitum, lubens agnosco hunc actum Divinum inniti praescientiae peccati humani. Sed tum dico non esse paris rationis electionem ad gloriam, et deputationem ad poenam: Nam Deus potest immerentem destinare ad gloriam ex mero beneplacito voluntatis suae, quia bonus est, sed non potest immerentem destinare ad poenam absque intuitu peccati, quia justus est. Observavit hoc discrimen Augustinus advers. Julian. lib. 3. cap. 18. Bonus est Deus, justus est Deus: potest sine bonis meritis liberare, quia bonus est; non potest sine malis meritis damnare, quia justus est.

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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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