Two Dissertations · §693 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 14 Sol close: reprobation half — no one appointed to damnation except from gaze on preceding sin (original, actual, or both); God hates none unto damnation without considering sin

Thus far of predestination. Now to that part of the objection which looks to reprobation. We answer briefly: on our view no one is appointed to damnation except from a gaze on preceding sin — original, actual, or both. For God hates no one unto damnation without considering sin. Nor does he hate men more than sin — he would never have hated them so except because of sin.

Latin

Hactenus de praedestinatione dictum est: Jam ad eam partem objectionis quae reprobationem spectat veniamus; Cui respondemus breviter, Neminem ex nostra sententia ad damnationem deputatum esse nisi ex intuitu praecedentis peccati, originalis nempe, actualis, aut utriusque. Neminem enim Deus odit ad damnationem absque consideratione peccati; Nec magis odit homines quam peccatum, quos nunquam ita odisset nisi propter peccatum.

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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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