Two Dissertations · §706 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. I close: Augustine — God can convert any wills; he eternally established to do so in some, not in others, by mere good pleasure; Vasquez — rejection from grace has no cause in the rejected beyond first parents' sin

For he who can — as Augustine says (De bono persever. Cap. 8) — convert anyone's averse and adverse wills, and from eternity established to do this in some and not in others, elects and passes over, has mercy and has not mercy, not by a foreknown difference of human wills, but by his own good pleasure of his will, elects and passes over, has mercy and has not mercy. Now let Vasquez be heard: If reprobation is used for the act whereby someone is rejected by God, we speak either of rejection from God's grace, or of rejection from the kingdom of heaven. If of the former, it must be asserted that no cause is given on the rejected one's part beyond the first parent's sin (In 1. disp. 89. c. 5. p. 701). So although no one is shut out of heaven and sent to gehenna by God's judging sentence except for his own sins — yet, even this Jesuit freely confessing, all the reprobate are rejected from the predestined's grace by God's liberty, doing of his own what he wills.

Latin

Nam Qui potest, ut loquitur Augustinus, De bono persever. cap. 8. aversas et adversas quorumvis convertere voluntates, et hoc ab aeterno statuit in quibusdam facere, in quibusdam non facere, ille non secundum praescitam differentiam humanarum voluntatum, sed secundum merum beneplacitum suae voluntatis, eligit et praeterit, miseretur et non miseretur. Jam Vasques audiatur: Si reprobatio usurpetur pro actu quo quis rejicitur a Deo, aut loquimur de actu quo quis rejicitur a gratia Dei, aut quo rejicitur a regno caelorum. Si de priore sermo sit, asserendum est nullam causam ex parte ejus dari qui rejicitur, praeter peccatum primi parentis, In 1. disp. 89. c. 5. p. 701. Quamvis igitur nemo e caelo excludatur et in gehennam ablegetur ex sententia Dei judicantis, nisi propter peccata propria: tamen, vel hoc Jesuita ultro confitente, omnes reprobati rejiciuntur a gratia praedestinatorum ex libertate Dei, de suo quod vult facientis.

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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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