Two Dissertations · §567 · John Davenant

Cap. VIII: Hactenus Jesuitarum — turn to Corvinus; negative reprobation to liberty alone

So far we have aired the Jesuits' and Scholastics' arguments. Corvinus also presses others in his Defense of the Arminian sentence against Tilenus — and if anything new appears there, it will be cleared. We must labor all the more to recall the negative act of reprobation — which we may call praeterition or non-election — to the sole liberty of the divine will. For all who derive this reprobation from foresight of evil acts also hang election on foresight of good acts.

Latin

Hactenus Jesuitarum ac Scholasticorum argumenta ventilavimus. Urgentur et alia nonnulla a Corvino, in Defensione sententiae Arminianae adversus Tilenum: in quibus si quid occurrat novi, diluetur. Eo autem magis nobis laborandum est, ut reprobationis actum negativum, quem praeteritionem sive non-electionem vocare possumus, ad solam Divinae voluntatis libertatem revocemus, quia omnes qui hanc reprobationem ex praevisione actuum malorum deducunt, electionem etiam ex praevisione actuum bonorum suspendunt.

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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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