Two Dissertations · §651 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 10 Sol cont.: means of salvation offered to reprobates are neither effects of predestination nor media of reprobation — they flow from philanthropy and more general providence; Thomas and Vasquez on the distinction

So the means of salvation offered to the reprobate are not effects of predestination — else they would reach the end. Nor do they flow from the reprobation decree as media God subordinated to procuring their damnation — for it is not God's part to furnish means that lead reprobates to everlasting death; those sprout abundantly from themselves if he does not oppose special grace. They flow instead from that philanthropy and more general providence which so disposes means toward an end that it meanwhile permits the second cause, by its own fault, to fall short of attaining it. Thomas well explains this distinction between Predestination and Providence (Quaest. Disp. De praed. Art. 1); Vasquez acknowledges the same (In 1 q.22 disp. 87 c.4, at the chapter's end).

Latin

Media igitur salutis quae offeruntur reprobatis non sunt effectus praedestinationis; quia sic finem consequerentur: neque fluunt a decreto reprobationis, tanquam media ad procurandam reprobatorum damnationem a Deo subordinata; quia non pertinet ad Deum providere de mediis reprobatos ad mortem aeternam ducentibus, quae ex ipsis abunde pullulant, si Deus gratiam specialem non opponat; sed manant ab illa φιλανθρωπίᾳ et generaliore providentia, quae media ad aliquem finem ita disponit, ut interim permittat causam secundam a consecutione finis suo vitio excidere. Hoc discrimen inter Praedestinationem et Providentiam bene explicavit Thomas, Quaest. Disp. De praed. art. 1. Eamque agnoscit ipse Vasques, In 1. quaest. 22. disp. 87. cap. 4. in ipso fine capitis.

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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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