Two Dissertations · §704 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. I: Gregory of Valencia — reprobation is the act whereby God firmly establishes to permit the reprobates' sins by not giving singular grace, exclude them from the kingdom, and punish eternally

Gregory of Valencia paints the picture this way (In Aquin. Qu. 23. on reprobation, punct. 1). Reprobation, he says, is an act of the divine intellect. By it God firmly intends to permit the sins of the reprobate, not giving them the singular grace by which they would be freed from those sins — and for those sins will shut them out of the heavenly kingdom and punish them forever.

Latin

Gregorius Valentia reprobationem ita nobis depingit, In Aquin. qu. 23. de reprobatione, punct. 1. Reprobatio est actus Divini intellectus, quo firmiter statuit Deus reprobatorum peccata permittere, non dando iis singularem gratiam qua ab iis liberarentur, et propter illa eos a regno caelesti excludere, ac in aeternum punire.

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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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