Two Dissertations · §582 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Resp.: as to adults — God does not damn without foresight of actual sin; reprobation as denying special grace is from liberty

Set infants aside and take the Major as it regards adults with reason and free will. If dealing by strict right means decreeing someone damned and afflicted with eternal death without regard to actual sin, we grant God does not so deal with such sinners. He neither damned them nor destined them to damnation except for sins he foresaw and final impenitence in them. But if by dealing by strict right Corvinus means not preparing that special grace which, applied, God knows and decrees will free such a man — or passing him by and not ordaining him to take hold of eternal life by the special-providence decree we call predestination, but leaving him to his deficiency (so to speak) — then we affirm God so acts with sole liberty of will. And if that is dealing by strict right (we shall see shortly), then he deals by strict right with all the reprobate.

Latin

Sed mittamus infantes, et Majorem discutiamus quatenus adultos et rationis ac liberi arbitrii compotes spectat. Quoad tales, si stricto jure agere intelligatur, qui decernit aliquem damnandum et morte aeterna afficiendum sine consideratione peccati actualis, fatemur Deum cum talibus peccatoribus stricto jure haud agere. Hosce enim neque damnavit, neque damnationi destinavit, nisi ob praevisa peccata, et finalem in iisdem impoenitentiam. Verum si per illud, stricto jure agere, Corvinus intelligat, non praeparare gratiam eam specialem, qua adhibita Deus scit atque statuit talem hominem fore liberandum, vel talem hominem praeterire et ad vitam aeternam capessendam decreto specialis providentiae, quam praedestinationem appellamus, haud ordinare, sed suae (ut ita dicam) deficientiae relinquere, tum affirmamus, Deum cum multis sic agere ex sola libertate voluntatis suae: et si hoc sit stricto jure agere (de quo mox videbimus), stricto jure agere cum omnibus reprobis.

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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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