Two Dissertations · §601 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: apostate angels received sufficient media yet some were elect, some reprobate — so sufficient grace to all would not prove reprobation only from foresight of final unbelief

The apostate angels make this plain. God was not only ready to give them media sufficient and needful to stand and persevere in divine obedience — he gave them. Yet every theologian grants that among the angels some were elect, some those not chosen or reprobate. So even if the adversaries could prove sufficient uman being, they still could not rightly infer that no one is reprobated except from foresight of final unbelief. Just as positing sufficient grace for a given person does not posit his antecedent predestination, so positing that same sufficient grace does not deny his antecedent reprobation.

Latin

In Angelis apostatis hujus rei veritas liquido apparet. Deus non modo paratus fuit dare illis media sufficientia et necessaria ad standum et perseverandum in obsequio Divino, sed dedit: ac nihilominus omnes Theologi fatentur, inter ipsos Angelos quosdam fuisse electos, quosdam non-electos sive reprobatos. Si igitur adversarii possint evincere, omnibus et singulis hominibus gratiam sufficientem dari, non tamen idcirco recte intulerint, neminem nisi ex praevisione finalis infidelitatis reprobari. Nam sicuti posita gratia sufficiente quoad designatam aliquam personam, non ponitur idcirco antecedanea ejus praedestinatio; ita nec posita eadem gratia sufficiente quoad eandem personam negatur idcirco antecedanea ejusdem reprobatio.

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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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