Two Dissertations · §573 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Corvini Arg. 1: as God damns the gospel-contumacious in time, so he reprobated them from eternity

Chapter IX — Corvinus's arguments proposed and dissolved. Adversaries commonly argue from the decree of damning to the act or decree of reprobation thus: In whatever manner of consideration God damns in time, in that same manner he decreed to damn and reprobated from eternity. But he damns men considered as contumacious to the Gospel — that is, as finally impenitent and unbelieving. Therefore he also reprobated them so considered.

Latin

Cap. IX. Corvini argumenta proponuntur et diluuntur. Argumentari igitur solent adversarii ab ipso damnandi decreto ad actum sive decretum reprobationis, hoc modo: Qualiter consideratos Deus damnat in tempore, taliter consideratos decrevit damnare, et reprobavit ab aeterno. Sed damnat homines consideratos ut Evangelio immorigeros, hoc est, ut finaliter impenitentes et incredulos: Ergo etiam taliter consideratos reprobavit.

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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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