Two Dissertations · §594 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: evangelizing mandate does not clash with reprobating will — passover antecedes final hardness, not from foresight of it

We are commanded to preach the Gospel to many whom God, in that infallible ordination to grace and glory, from mere good pleasure willed to pass by. So the evangelizing mandate does not clash with the reprobating will. I add: he willed to pass them by as to preparing this special, actually saving grace — by a will that precedes their final hardness, not one that flows from foresight of that final hardness and unbelief. For (as often said) a particular person's final impenitence and unbelief is not foreseen by God as absolutely certain until the reprobation decree for that person stands — whereby God decreed not to pity them so far as to soften and convert them efficaciously, and also decreed to permit them by their own vice to repel any offered grace and stay hard-hearted to life's end.

Latin

Jam vero jubemur Evangelium multis praedicare, quos Deus in hac infallibili ordinatione ad gratiam et gloriam, ex mero suo beneplacito, voluit praeterire. Mandatum igitur Evangelizandi non pugnat cum voluntate reprobandi. Addo etiam, Praeterire illos voluit, quoad praeparationem specialis hujus gratiae et de facto salutiferae, voluntate duritiam illorum finalem antecedente, et non ex praevisione finalis hujus duritiae et infidelitatis emanante. Nam (ut saepe dictum est) finalis impoenitentia et infidelitas hujus aut illius singularis personae non praevidetur aut praeconsideratur a Deo tanquam absolute et certo futura, nisi decreto reprobationis quoad eandem personam stabilito, quo Deus statuit, nolle talis personae eousque misereri ut efficaciter eam emolliat et convertat; quo etiam statuit, velle permittere ut suo vitio quamlibet gratiam oblatam repellat, et obduratus corde ad finem usque vitae suae permaneat.

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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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