Two Dissertations · §560 · John Davenant

Cap. VIII Resp.: election and praeterition from mere good pleasure; those passed by were children of wrath

Further: in electing or passing by he regards no external circumstance of nation, nobility, or the like, but acts from the mere good pleasure of his will. Finally, those he passes by cannot pretend they feared God and lived justly; they are compelled instead to acknowledge they were children of wrath, most unworthy of the least divine benefit. So this Scripture place proves neither that predestination and reprobation proceed from some cause holding on the human side, nor that God is to be charged as an acceptor of persons.

Latin

Porro, in eligendo aut praetereundo non respicit aliquam externam circumstantiam gentis, nobilitatis, aut quid consimile, sed agit ex mero beneplacito voluntatis suae. Denique, ii quos praeterit non possunt obtendere se Deum timuisse et juste vixisse, sed coguntur e contra agnoscere se fuisse irae filios, et minimo Dei beneficio indignissimos. Hic igitur locus Scripturae non probat, aut praedestinationem et reprobationem procedere ex causa aliqua se tenente ex parte hominum, aut Deum personarum acceptorem esse arguendum.

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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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