Two Dissertations · §607 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Sol: without simulation God can offer remission and life indiscriminately on condition of faith — reprobation decree is not 'even if Judas believes he will not be saved'

With that premise I answer: reprobation decree notwithstanding, God can without any deception, through evangelical ministers, set before men indiscriminately remission of sins and eternal life on this condition — If they believe in Christ. Nor does he simulate when under that condition he promises salvation to any whatsoever: to whoever fulfills the condition he will faithfully give the promised benefit. If the reprobation decree were cast as Even if Judas believes, he will not obtain remission or eternal life, Gospel preaching to the reprobate would be open illusion. But that decree holds only this: I will not give Judas that special grace by which he would in fact fulfill the proposed condition. To convict God of simulation they must show he promised through evangelical ministers to give that special grace to someone whom he nonetheless rejected from it by antecedent reprobation. If they ever do that — which they never can — we will (God forbid) let them prosecute God as guilty of simulation.

Latin

Hisce praelibatis respondeo, Deum absque omni simulatione, non obstante tali decreto reprobationis, posse per evangelicos ministros remissionem peccatorum et vitam aeternam hominibus indiscriminatim proponere sub conditione hac, Si crediderint in Christum. Neque simulat Deus quando sub hac conditione promittit salutem promiscue quibusvis hominibus, quia cuivis homini conditionem implenti promissum beneficium fideliter exhibebit. Si reprobationis decretum in hanc formam conciperetur, Etiamsi Judas crediderit, non obtinebit remissionem peccatorum, aut vitam aeternam, esset manifesta illusio quoad reprobatos in praedicatione Evangelii. Sed illud decretum hoc tantum continet, Non dabo Judae specialem illam gratiam, qua mediante conditionem propositam de facto impleret. Si Deum simulationis velint coarguere, ostendere debent, Deum promisisse per ministros evangelicos se daturum hanc specialem gratiam alicui personae, quam nihilominus antecedaneo reprobationis decreto ab eadem rejecit. Hoc si fecerint, quod nunquam facere poterunt, nos (quod absit) Deum simulationis peragi ab illis reum patiemur.

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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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