Two Dissertations · §743 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. VIII: the Church never dared that — infants outside the Church born unclean and debtors of eternal death unless secret mercy intervene

But Christ’s church never dared to settle that. On the contrary, of infants born outside the church considered in themselves she pronounces: All are born unclean; all die debtors of eternal death, unless God's secret mercy—hidden from us—helps certain ones beyond the ordinary order

Latin

At Ecclesia Christi nunquam hoc ausa est statuere: sed e contra, de statu infantium extra Ecclesiam natorum in se considerato pronunciat, Omnes nasci impuros, omnes mori aeternae mortis reos, nisi arcana nobis minime revelata Dei misericordia quibusdam extra ordinem succurrat.

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About this text

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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