Two Dissertations · §742 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. VII→VIII open: if reprobation only from antecedent unbelief, all infants dying before free will—even pagans—must be elect and saved

Grant reprobation only from antecedent unbelief plus actual contempt or neglect of divine grace, and catholic faith would have to treat as certain that every infant who dies before free will—even a pagan’s—is elect and will be saved. Why? Such a child could not yet incur unbelief’s guilt from scorning the Gospel and divine grace.

Latin

Posita reprobatione non nisi ex antecedente infidelitate et contemtu actuali sive neglectu gratiae Divinae, necesse est ut ponamus tanquam certum fide catholica, omnes infantes, etiam Paganorum, qui moriuntur ante usum liberi arbitrii, electos esse et salvos fore. Ratio in promptu est, Quia tales infidelitatis reatum ex contemptu Evangelii et gratiae Divinae contrahere nondum potuerunt.

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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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