Two Dissertations · §597 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4: God is ready to give all sufficient media to believe and convert — therefore reprobation only by consequent will after foresight of final impenitence

They press harder still: God on his part is ready to give everyone the media sufficient and needful for believing and converting, and will surely give them unless people themselves put up a barrier. But that seems to clash — that God by antecedent will should have reprobated someone, and yet be ready to supply him everything needful for salvation. Therefore, they say, he reprobated no one except by consequent will after foresight of that person's final impenitence, unbelief, and rejection of divine grace.

Latin

Urgent adhuc fortius; Deus ipse ex parte sua paratus est dare omnibus media sufficientia et necessaria ad credendum et convertendum, ac dabit proculdubio nisi obicem ipsi posuerint: Videntur autem haec inter se pugnare, ut Deus voluntate antecedente aliquem reprobaverit, et tamen paratus sit ei suppeditare omnia ad salutem necessaria: Neminem ergo reprobavit nisi voluntate consequente praevisam ejusdem hominis finalem impoenitentiam, infidelitatem, gratiaeque Divinae rejectionem.

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About this text

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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