Two Dissertations · §714 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. III close: reprobating acts are later than final hardness yet prior to it in the order of decree — so reprobation does not follow from foreseen final unbelief but precedes that foresight (John x. 26)

These and the like are acts of reprobating that come later in the life's course, and yet are prior to the reprobates' final hardness and unbelief. So from this or that one's foreseen final unbelief, his reprobation does not follow — rather it precedes that foresight. Christ's words make it easy: "You do not believe, because you are not of my sheep" (John x. 26).

Latin

Haec et alia hujusmodi sunt acta reprobandi posteriora, et tamen finali reprobatorum duritia et infidelitate priora: Ergo ex praevisa finali infidelitate hujus aut illius non consequitur reprobatio ejusdem, sed hanc praevisionem potius antecedit: Quod ex illis Christi verbis facile colligitur, Vos non creditis: non enim estis ex ovibus meis, Joann. x. 26.

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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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