Two Dissertations · §574 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 1: major — sin's relation to damnation same as to reprobation; wisdom would not reprobate without demerit

They take the Major as clear from this: whatever relation sin has to damnation, it has the same to reprobation — so as sin is granted meritorious and moving cause moving God to damn this or that particular person, it must likewise stand toward reprobation. They add that it clashes with divine wisdom to will to reprobate a sinner without regard to evil merits, yet refuse to condemn him in time except for evil merits.

Latin

Majorem inde liquere putant, quod quam rationem peccatum habet ad damnationem, eandem etiam habeat ad reprobationem: atque idcirco sicuti agnoscitur habere rationem causae meritoriae et moventis ipsum Deum ad damnationem hujus vel illius singularis personae, ita etiam se habere debet ad reprobationem. Hisce omnibus adjiciunt, repugnare Divinae sapientiae, ut velit reprobare peccatorem sine meritorum malorum consideratione, et tamen eundem in tempore nisi propter mala merita nolit condemnare.

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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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