Two Dissertations · §565 · John Davenant

Cap. VIII Arg.: no just judge intends punitive justice per se — therefore God reprobates from foresight of demerit

They press further: a just judge never aims at punitive justice for its own sake — only once punishable fault is supposed. Yet God, they say, in the act of reprobating means to exercise punitive and vindicative justice. Hence reprobation must spring from foresight of free will's evil, demeritorious use.

Latin

Nullus justus judex per se intendit justitiam punitivam, sed tantum ex suppositione punibilis culpae: Sed in reprobando Deus intendit justitiam suam punitivam et vindicativam exercere: Ergo reprobat ex praescientia mali et demeritorii usus liberi arbitrii.

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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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