Two Dissertations · §475 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 9: second — infant elect without foresight faith; Augustine vs Pelagians

Second limb — conformity among the members: many of Christ's members were predestined to eternal life with no prior regard to faith or perseverance. Persevering faith is only considered in those who use reason and free choice; so all who die in infancy and are saved must have been destined to salvation without that regard. Many die at that age whose salvation the Church never doubted. Many, then, were both elect and saved in whom foresight of faith and perseverance could have no place. By elect infants Augustine everywhere stops the Pelagians' mouths — those who grounded predestination to life in predicted merits (On Predestination and Grace 7; On the Gift of Perseverance 8, 12; On Merits and Remission 1.21; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.7).

Latin

Jam quod ad posterius, nempe conformitatem praedestinationis inter ipsa membra: clarum est multa membra Christi in vitam aeternam fuisse praedestinata absque antecedaneo intuitu fidei aut perseverantiae in eadem. Nam cum fides perseverans non consideretur nisi in illis qui utuntur ratione et libero arbitrio, quotquot in infantia morientes salvantur, absque hujus intuitu ad salutem fuisse destinatos est necesse. At multi ea aetate moriuntur, de quorum salute Ecclesia nunquam dubitavit. Multi ergo et electi et servati fuerunt, in quibus haec praevisio fidei et perseverantiae locum habere non potuit. Hoc argumento ab infantibus electis petito Augustinus passim occludit ora Pelagianorum, qui ex praevisis meritis praedestinationem ad vitam statuerunt: De praed. et grat. cap. 7; De bono persever. cap. 8 et 12; De peccat. mer. et remiss. lib. 1. cap. 21; Contr. 2 Epist. Pelag. lib. 2. cap. 7.

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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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