Two Dissertations · §579 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg.: Adam's sin remitted to all — God cannot leave anyone in that condemnation by strict right alone

From Adam's sin remitted to all alike they argue thus: God cannot deal by strict right with any man lying in Adam's common sin so as to leave him in that condemnation without any hope of pardon. But if he reprobated any only as lying in Adam's common fall, and not for their actual personal rebellion against God, he would be dealing with them by strict and highest right.

Latin

Ab Adae peccato omnibus promiscue remisso sic disputant: Deus non valet stricto jure agere cum ullo homine in communi Adae peccato jacente, ita ut sine ulla spe veniae in ista condemnatione relinquatur: At si reprobaret quospiam tantum ut jacentes in lapsu communi Adae, et non propter actualem eorum et personalem in Deum rebellionem, stricto et summo jure cum illis ageret.

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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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