Two Dissertations · §510 · John Davenant

Cap. VII: our sum — praeterition from mere liberty; Paul and Judas

Our sum: foresight of demerits is not the cause of praeterition, non-election, or reprobation strictly taken. As it hangs on mere good pleasure that certain persons by that special providence we call Predestination are infallibly ordained to grace and glory, so it hangs on mere divine liberty that others are not so ordained, but left without this efficacious grace and permitted to fall short of glory. If anyone asks why God could most easily and justly leave both Paul and Judas to native hardness and eternal misery — and could as easily soften both and lead them to eternal glory — why he prepared efficacious softening grace for Paul and not Judas, ordained Paul infallibly to glory and not Judas: we do not flee to Paul's foresighted faith or merits, nor Judas's foresighted unbelief or demerits. We say God has mercy on whom he will by softening, and on whom he will he has least mercy by permissive hardening. For providence so diverse about these persons we assign no cause but the Will of God, which is the first rectitude. So you have our opinion.

Latin

Sententiae nostrae haec summa est: Praescientiam demeritorum non esse causam praeteritionis, non-electionis sive reprobationis stricte et proprie sumptae; sed sicuti ex mero Dei beneplacito dependet, quod certae quaedam personae per specialem providentiam, quam Praedestinationem appellamus, infallibiliter ordinentur ad gratiam et gloriam, ita ex mera Dei libertate dependet, quod aliae quaedam personae non ita ordinentur, sed a gratia hac efficaci destituantur, et a gloria deficere permittantur. Si quis ergo a nobis quaerat, cur Deus facillime et justissime potuerit tam Paulum quam Judam duritiae suae nativae relinquere, et aeternae miseriae addicere, qui etiam facillime potuit utrumque emollire, et ad aeternam gloriam perducere — si, inquam, quaeratur cur Judae non praeparaverit gratiam efficacem qua emolliretur et servaretur, Paulo praeparaverit; cur Judam non ordinaverit infallibiliter ad gloriam, Paulum ordinaverit — non confugimus ad praevisam fidem aut merita Pauli, neque ad praevisam Judae infidelitatem aut demerita, sed dicimus Deum misereri cujus vult emolliendo, et cujus vult minime misereri permissive indurando: Neque hujus tam diversae providentiae circa hasce personas aliam causam assignamus praeter Voluntatem Dei, quae est prima rectitudo. Atque sic habetis sententiam nostram.

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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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