Two Dissertations · §649 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 10 Sol cont.: Gospel not administered from a precise intention of damning anyone — damnation's desert arises from neglect and contempt God foresaw and would not hinder in the reprobate

So God does not administer the Gospel to anyone with a precise intention of damning him. When neglect and contempt intervene, desert of damnation arises in the despiser — which God foresaw and was unwilling to hinder in all the reprobate.

Latin

Evangelium igitur non administratur ab ipso Deo ulli homini ex proxima et precisa intentione illum damnandi; sed, interveniente ejus neglectu et contemptu, exoritur in contemnente meritum damnationis, quod Deus praevidebat fore, et nolebat impedire in omnibus reprobatis.

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About this text

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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