Two Dissertations · §464 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 7: Prosper and Hilary — Pelagian remnants reject a fixed elect number

The Pelagian remnants said it more openly still — Prosper and Hilary in their letters to Augustine. Prosper: they will not grant predestination that the elect's number can neither grow nor shrink. Hilary: they will not have a defined number of those to be chosen and rejected.

Latin

Multo autem apertius id asseruerunt Pelagianorum reliqui, apud Prosperum et Hilarium in Epistolis ad Augustinum. Sic igitur Prosper: Non acquiescunt praedestinationi, electorum numerum nec augeri posse nec minui. Et Hilarius: Hi non recipiunt, ut eligendorum et rejiciendorum esse definitum numerum velint.

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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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