Two Dissertations · §599 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: infants of unbelieving idolaters — rejection without foresight of the reprobate's unbelief; Vasquez also grants some adult reprobation before foresight of sins

Take infants born of two unbelieving idolatrous parents — knowing no Christ, serving the devil — whom the Apostle himself calls unclean (1 Cor. 7:14): for them sufficient media were neither prepared nor administered. In such cases they must grant rejection with no regard to foresight of the reprobate's unbelief. Set those infants aside who, under divine providence, are born and die outside the Church: the same Vasquez also grants that even for adults with reason and free will some reprobation and repulse was fixed by God before foresight of sins (ibid. Cap. 2). By reprobation he means rejection from that special grace which, denied, leaves a man always hardening and rushing into perdition (cap. 5).

Latin

Sed quibusdam infantibus (puta ex utroque parente infideli idololatra, Christum nesciente, diabolum colente, susceptis, quos ἀκάθαρτοι ipse Apostolus indigitavit, 1 Cor. vii. 14.) sufficientia media non fuere praeparata aut administrata: In talibus ergo coguntur agnoscere rejectionem absque respectu ad praevisam et praeconsideratam personae reprobatae infidelitatem. Sed missis infantibus, qui Divina providentia ita ordinante nascuntur et moriuntur extra Ecclesiam, Idem Vasques et illud largitur, Et a praevisione peccatorum, etiam quoad adultos et rationis ac liberi arbitrii compotes, fuisse aliquam reprobationem et repulsam a Deo praefinitam, ibid. cap. 2. Reprobationem autem intelligit, rejectionem ab illa gratia speciali, qua negata homo semper indurescit et in perditionem ruit, cap. 5.

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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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