Two Dissertations · §587 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Resp. to Minor: God reprobating those in original sin alone does not deal by strict or highest right

As for the Minor, I also deny that God, when he reprobates, deals with the reprobate by strict or highest right if he reprobates them as lying in original sin alone. If he dealt by highest right, as soon as they were born he could cast them into Gehenna as guilty of eternal death. If he dealt by strict right, he could strip them of all gifts of his grace.

Latin

Ad Minorem quod attinet, nego etiam et illud, Deum reprobantem stricto vel summo jure agere cum reprobis, si eos ut in solo originali peccato jacentes reprobet. Si summo jure ageret cum reprobis, simul ac in lucem editi essent, posset illos ut aeternae mortis reos in gehennam ablegare: Si stricto jure ageret, posset omnibus gratiae suae donis destituere.

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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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