Two Dissertations · §600 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: supply of sufficient grace does not exclude antecedent reprobation — preparation of efficacious grace does, and implies election

If Arminius, Corvinus, and their backers grant us even that much, it follows that supplying sufficient grace does not shut out antecedent reprobation — whereas preparing efficacious grace truly does shut it out, and brings election in. So grant that God administers sufficient grace to every adult: still (as you see), even by a Jesuit's judgment, it does not follow they were not reprobated before foresight of final demerits.

Latin

Si Arminius, Corvinus, eorumque assipulatores vel hoc nobis concesserint, sequetur sufficientis gratiae suppeditationem non excludere antecedaneam reprobationem, sed efficacis gratiae praeparationem revera illam excludere, et electionem inferre. Sumatur igitur, omnibus adultis gratiam sufficientem a Deo administrari, tamen (uti videtis) vel Jesuita judice, non inde sequitur eos non fuisse ante praevisionem finalium demeritorum reprobatos.

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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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