Two Dissertations · §722 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. V: therefore election/predestination and preterition/reprobation do not hang on antecedent foresight of faith or unbelief — they precede such foresight

So election — that is, predestination — and preterition — that is, reprobation — do not hang on antecedent foresight of faith and perseverance in some, and of unbelief and pertinacity in others. They precede that foresight.

Latin

Electio sive praedestinatio, et praeteritio sive reprobatio non pendent ex praevisione antecedanea fidei et perseverantiae in quibusdam, ac infidelitatis et pertinaciae in aliis, sed talem praevisionem antecedunt.

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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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