Two Dissertations · §662 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 12 Sol: Minor denied — due confidence is that praying for others pleases God and we obtain as far as he sees fit; stands with our doctrine and with Arminian

But let us take the Minor: they say the reprobation we posit blocks prayers from being offered to God with due confidence. We deny that. Due confidence needs only this: we are certain the duty of praying for others pleases God, and that we shall obtain for them insofar as God sees fit and as agrees with divine glory. That confidence stands as well with our doctrine as with the Arminian. For they dare not deny that the reprobation decree is eternal and irrevocable, though they say it rests on eternal foresight of human unbelief. So it is certain: Judas reprobated from eternity can by no others' prayers be led to salvation — even on the reprobation Arminius maintains.

Latin

Sed pergamus ad Minorem, in qua dicunt reprobationem a nobis positam impedire quo minus preces cum debita fiducia Deo offerantur. Nos hoc negamus, et dicimus ad debitam fiduciam sufficere, quod certi sumus hoc officium orandi pro aliis Deo placere, et nos pro illis impetraturos, quatenus Deo visum fuerit, ac Divinae gloriae fuerit consentaneum. Haec fiducia stare potest aeque cum nostra doctrina, ac cum Arminiana. Nam illi non audent negare decretum reprobationis esse aeternum et irrevocabile, quamvis asserant illud niti aeterna humanae infidelitatis praevisione. Certum itaque est, Judam ab aeterno reprobatum nullis aliorum precibus posse ad salutem perduci, vel posita illa reprobatione quam tuetur Arminius.

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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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