Two Dissertations · §568 · John Davenant

Cap. VIII: Augustine rejects foresight of Esau's evil and Jacob's good alike as causes

Add Augustine — no one treated this cause more learnedly or holily: he denies as much that Esau's foresighted evil works were the cause of his reprobation as that Jacob's foresighted good works were the cause of his election. See Enchiridion to Laurentius 98, To Simplicianus 1.2, and Epistle 105, where he equally rejects those who say God hated or loved the not-yet-born because he foresaw their future works. Epistle 106 openly teaches that God by loving discerns those whom no merits discern. As he will not accept foresight of good merits as the basis for election, so he will not accept foresight of evils as the basis for reprobation. reprobation. Reprobation. For where good acts — believing, obeying, persevering tand on one side and opposite evil acts on the other, those are clearly regarded as discerned by merits. But let us come to Corvinus's sentence.

Latin

Huc etiam accedit quod Augustinus (quo nemo doctius aut sanctius hanc causam tractavit) tam negat praevisa mala opera Esavi fuisse causam quod a Deo reprobaretur, quam praevisa bona opera Jacobi negat causam fuisse quod is a Deo eligeretur. Videte Enchir. ad Laurent. cap. 98, Ad Simpl. lib. 1. quaest. 2, et Epist. 105, ubi illorum sententiam qui inquiunt Deum nondum natorum vel hunc odisse vel illum dilexisse, quia eorum futura opera praevidebat, ex aequo rejicit. Et Epist. 106 aperte docet, Deum diligendo eos discernere, quos merita nulla discernunt. Sicut igitur praevisionem bonorum meritorum non admittit causam fuisse electionis, ita nec praevisionem malorum concedit fuisse rationem reprobationis. Nam ubi ex una parte considerantur boni actus, puta credendi, obediendi, perseverandi, ex altera mali actus hisce oppositi, illos ut meritis discretos considerari perspicuum est. Sed ad Corvini sententiam veniamus.

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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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