Two Dissertations · §658 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 11 Sol: Augustine on sacrament preceding heart-conversion; Fulgentius — baptism suffices for infants while reason is incapable; Aquinas — Christ's passion applied by the sacrament

Finally, on adults' actual renewal or regeneration — when by the power of divine word and Spirit one is converted and by believing justified — Augustine writes: In baptized infants the sacrament of regeneration precedes, and if they hold Christian piety, conversion of heart also follows, whose mystery preceded in the body (lib. 4 Contra Donatist. Cap. 24). So of all baptized infants we assert with Fulgentius: The sacrament of faith, which is holy baptism, while infants' age cannot be capable of reason, suffices them for salvation (De fid. ad Petrum Diac. Cap. 30). Nor do we scorn Aquinas on this: Infants who have nothing reby they can turn themselves to the justifying cause have that cause itself — Christ's passion — applied to them through the sacrament of baptism (Quaest. disp. de Justific. Art. 3).

Latin

Denique, de renovatione sive regeneratione actuali adultorum, quae fit cum quis virtute verbi Divini Spiritusque convertitur, et credendo justificatur, sic scribit Augustinus, In baptizatis infantibus praecedit regenerationis sacramentum, et si Christianam pietatem tenuerint, sequitur etiam in corde conversio, cujus mysterium praecessit in corpore, lib. 4. Contra Donatist. cap. 24. Nos itaque de omnibus infantibus baptizatis cum Fulgentio asserimus, Sacramentum fidei, quod est sanctum baptisma, quamdiu rationis aetas infantium capax esse non potest, sufficit eis ad salutem, De fid. ad Petrum Diac. cap. 30. Neque Aquinatis hac de re dictum adspernamur; Qui, inquit, non habent infantes unde possint se convertere ad causam justificantem, ipse causa justificans, scilicet passio Christi, applicatur eis per sacramentum baptismi, Quaest. disp. de Justific. art. 3.

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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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