Two Dissertations · §645 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 10 Sol cont.: angel gifts — God foresaw abuse unto pride and rebellion, yet gifts not subordinated to ruin but to obedience and beatitude

Take the angels: God foresaw that some, endowed with excellent gifts, would abuse those gifts in pride and rebellion; he decreed to permit that, and for that rebellion to torment them with everlasting punishments. Yet no one would say those gifts were, by God's primary and proper intention, subordinated to their ruin and damnation — rather to their obedience and beatitude.

Latin

Verbi causa; Deus praevidit quosdam Angelos eximiis donis instructos velle iisdem abuti ad superbiendum et rebellandum; decrevit hoc permittere, et propter hanc rebellionem eosdem aeternis suppliciis cruciare: nemo tamen dixerit ea dona ex primaria et propria Dei intentione fuisse ad illorum ruinam et damnationem subordinata, sed potius ad illorum obedientiam et beatitudinem.

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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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