Two Dissertations · §635 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 9: if creation of each is continuation of first creation, absolute reprobation not from foresight of final unbelief fights creation diametrically — creation would become a medium subordinated to damnation

If creation means that making of particulars by which each receives his being from God — a sort of continuation of the first creation — then those who set reprobation as not made from foresight of final unbelief make it fight creation head-on. Creation by nature is a communication of good according to God's natural goodness. But if it is cast so as to have this intention — that it be a path by which reprobation already made reaches its end — it is no longer a communication of good, but a medium subordinated to damnation. And that is the medium set by those who hang predestination and reprobation on God's mere will, not on foresight of faith and unbelief.

Latin

Si creatio accipiatur pro illa singularium creatione qua unusquisque suum esse a Deo accipit, quae est primae creationis quasi continuatio, tum qui reprobationem ponunt haud factam ex praevisione finalis infidelitatis, faciunt illam ex diametro pugnare cum creatione. Nam creatio sua natura est communicatio boni secundum naturalem Dei bonitatem: At cum ejusmodi statuitur esse, ut hanc habeat intentionem, quod via sit per quam reprobatio jam ante facta finem suum consequatur, non est jam communicatio boni, sed medium damnationi subordinatum. Tale autem medium statuitur ab illis, qui ponunt praedestinationem et reprobationem ex mera Dei voluntate pendere, et non ex praevisione fidei et infidelitatis.

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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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