Two Dissertations · §634 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 8 Sol cont.: Augustine — infants go into the mildest of all damnation, demons into the bitterest; degrees in eternal damnation unknown

However God damns infants stained and bound by original sin alone, and also damns demons guilty of actual wicked rebellion, there is a huge difference in the mode and degree of the punishment inflicted. Infants (as Augustine well says, De peccat. mer. Et remiss. 1.16) go into the mildest of all damnation; demons into damnation far the bitterest. No edge of human wit can tell how many degrees of pains there may be in the same eternal damnation. So this argument does not follow: Infants are damned for original sin, and Devils only for actual sin; therefore infants are treated more rigidly.

Latin

Jam vero, utcunque Deus damnet parvulos solo originali peccato contaminatos et constrictos, ac damnet etiam diabolos actualis et nefariae rebellionis reos, tamen in modo et gradu poenae inflictiae ingens discrimen est. Nam infantes (ut bene Augustinus, De peccat. mer. et remiss. l. 1. cap. 16.) exeunt in damnatione omnium mitissima; daemones in damnatione longe acerbissima. Nulla autem acies ingenii humani potest discernere, quot possunt esse gradus poenarum in eadem damnatione aeterna: ac proinde inconsequens est haec argumentatio, Parvuli damnantur ob peccatum originale, et Diaboli tantum damnantur ob peccatum actuale, Ergo parvuli rigidius tractantur.

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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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