Two Dissertations · §625 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 7 Sol: Adam's rebellion, impenitence, and unbelief are born in-house — no need to fetch such effects from divine reprobation

For in all Adam's children rebellion, impenitence, and unbelief are born in-house — so there is little need to fetch such effects from divine reprobation. All these, even amid many remedies and helps of divine grace, still break out from a vitiated heart unless healed and set firm in good by the benefit of special mercy flowing from the election decree. The head of error in their argument is this assumption: that God, when he reprobates, procures in the very same way the media that later lead the reprobate to eternal death as he procures the media that lead the elect to eternal life. And since it is plain that God predestinating by a proper special operation works in the predestined faith, holiness, perseverance, and all else by which as means life is reached, they think it follows that if God has antecedently reprobated some, in them he works unbelief, impenitence, and all else by which as means they later rush to death. But the matter stands far otherwise.

Latin

Nam omnibus filiis Adae rebellio, impoenitentia, infidelitas domi nascuntur, ut minime opus sit a reprobatione Divina hujusmodi effecta arcessere: haec enim omnia, etiam inter multa gratiae Divinae remedia et auxilia, erumpunt tamen ex corde vitiato, nisi specialis misericordiae beneficio ex electionis decreto manante sanetur, et in bono statuminetur. In argumento igitur proposito caput erroris illud est, quod sumatur, Deum reprobantem eodem prorsus modo procurare media quae ducunt postea reprobatos ad mortem aeternam, quo procurat media quae ducunt electos ad vitam aeternam: atque hinc, quia perspicuum est, Deum praedestinantem propria et speciali quadam operatione efficere in praedestinatis fidem, sanctitatem, perseverantiam reliquaque omnia, quibus tanquam mediis ad vitam pervenitur; putant etiam consequens esse, ut si Deus antecedenter aliquos reprobaverit, in iisdem efficiat infidelitatem, impoenitentiam, ceteraque omnia quibus tanquam mediis postmodum in mortem ruitur. Sed longe aliter se res habet.

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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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