Two Dissertations · §678 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 14 Sol: grave charge — if our sentence uproots Christianity's foundations it must itself be uprooted; we grant their double-love foundation but deny our sentence fights it

Truly this charge against us is grave. If our view uproots Christianity's foundations, it must itself be torn up from the roots. So let us weigh how true the accusation is. First: we pick no quarrel with the adversaries over that twofold love in which they set religion's foundation — but we deny that our view fights that love.

Latin

Grave profecto hoc crimen est quod nobis objicitur. Nam si sententia nostra convellat religionis Christianae fundamenta, est ipsa quidem ab imis fundamentis revellenda. Expendamus igitur quam vera sit haec criminatio. Atque inprimis non intendimus ullam litem adversariis de duplici illo amore in quo religionis fundamentum collocant; sed negamus sententiam nostram huic amori repugnare.

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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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