Two Dissertations · §344 · John Davenant

Cap. IV open: Arminianorum sententia — from Pontiffs to interpolators; Arminius on faith foresight

Cap. IV. The Arminians' position is set out and their arguments refuted. Pontiff arguments omitted and rejected, we next deal with those who interpolated this controversy — changing some words and phrases while keeping the same error foundations. Chief among them is Jacobus Arminius: learned, sharp-minded, yet little regard for the ancient Church's judgment and none for the Reformed. Lest his defense look too crude, he would not hold anyone predestinated from foreseen works or merits (as some say) but from foreseen faith; nor would he boldly call that faith the cause of our predestination to glory as they did of works — with softened words he calls it only a condition, or something decently antecedent.

Latin

Cap. IV. Arminianorum sententia exponitur, atque argumenta refelluntur. Omissis atque rejectis Pontificiorum argumentis, cum iis deinceps agendum est, qui interpolarunt hanc controversiam, mutatis quibusdam vocabulis, et loquendi formulis, ipsa tamen errorum fundamenta retinuerunt. In his principem locum obtinet Jacobus Arminius, vir doctus et acri ingenio, sed qui parum tribuebat antiquae Ecclesiae judicio, nihil Reformatae. Is igitur, ne crassus nimis videretur in constituenda sua defensione, noluit tueri ullum hominem praedestinari ex praevisis operibus aut meritis (ut loquuntur quidam) sed ex fide praevisa; noluit etiam quod illi de operibus audacter afferebant, de hac fide asserere, illam esse causam praedestinationis nostrae ad gloriam: sed vocabulis emollitis, docet esse tantum conditionem, aut quiddam decenter antecedaneum.

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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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