Two Dissertations · §718 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. IV: open advocates grant the consequence and find no absurdity — Lessius; but Paul refers both reprobation and election to God's antecedent will of mercy and non-mercy by good pleasure

Those who plead this cause more openly grant the force of the consequence, yet find no absurdity in holding — as they speak — that election and reprobation depend on acts of human choice. So the Jesuit Lessius philosophizes. But because the Apostle clearly and plainly referred both reprobation and election to God's antecedent will - showing mercy and withholding mercy according to his good pleasure - others are forced to answer otherwise..

Latin

Qui apertius hanc causam agunt, agnoscunt vim consequentiae, sed minime absurdum arbitrantur, complecti (ut illi loquuntur) electionem et reprobationem ex humani arbitrii actibus dependere. Sic philosophatur Lessius Jesuita. Sed quia Apostolus tam reprobationem quam electionem clare et perspicue retulit ad antecedentem Dei voluntatem, miserentis et non miserentis pro suo beneplacito, alii coguntur aliter respondere.

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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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