Two Dissertations · §487 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 11 close: Arminian order is Postdestinatio, not Praedestinatio

Even if we had no other argument, this alone would amply shatter that Arminian predestination: it has men predestined to eternal life only once they have already arrived, every difficulty and danger overcome. That is more rightly called Postdestination than Predestination.

Latin

Si nullum aliud argumentum suppeteret nobis, hoc unicum abunde infringere et evertere posset illam praedestinationem Arminianam, quod homines ponat tum demum ad vitam aeternam praedestinari, cum ad ipsam, superatis omnibus difficultatibus et periculis, pervenerint: quae rectius Postdestinatio quam Praedestinatio dicatur.

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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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