Two Dissertations · §536 · John Davenant

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Resp.: negative reprobation not from foresight of final obstinacy; Lombard

Third: if adversaries claim negative reprobation springs from foresight of final obstinacy in actual sins, that abhors not only truth but all likelihood. The very decree permitting that final hardening — wherein reprobation sits — precedes absolute foresight of the hardening. So Peter Lombard (Sentences 1, dist. 40): Reprobation is foresight of malice in certain ones and of not having mercy. That foresight is founded in the decree denying the special grace that in fact softens any heart, however hard. It is vain, then, to make foresight of final remaining in sins the cause of reprobation, when that remaining presupposes the permission sprung from the prior reprobation decree. So much for the argument in general. Now the testimonies one by one.

Latin

Tertio, si contendunt adversarii, hanc reprobationem negativam ex praescientia finalis pertinaciae in actualibus peccatis esse oriundam, respondemus, hoc non modo a veritate sed ab omni verisimilitudine abhorrere. Nam ipsum decretum permittendi finalem hanc obdurationem, in quo sita est reprobatio, absolutam ejusdem obdurationis praescientiam antecedit. Unde Petrus Lombardus, lib. 1, dist. 40, ait, Reprobationem esse praescientiam malitiae in quibusdam et non miserendi. Haec autem praescientia fundatur in decreto negante specialem illam gratiam et de facto cujuscunque cordis quantumvis duri emollientem. Frustra igitur statuitur praescientiam finalem in peccatis permansionem esse reprobationis causam, cum huic finali permansioni praeintelligatur permissio illa, orta ex praevio reprobationis decreto. Haec universe de ipso argumento. Jam sigillatim ad singula testimonia apposita respondebo.

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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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