Two Dissertations · §745 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. VIII close: Prosper — in infants neither prior merit nor future devotion is chosen; catholic sense: many die debtors of eternal death; Arminius rejected

Prosper everywhere holds the same (De libero arbitrio ad Ruffinum): In infants neither what precedes is chosen, nor future devotion. In his letter to Augustine: Little ones, he says, still having no wills and no acts of their own, are not parted without God’s judgment—some through regeneration taken up among heirs of the heavenly kingdom, others without baptism passing among debtors of perpetual death. In short, the whole catholic church’s constant sense (while keeping God's secrets to himself) has been: All infants are born debtors of eternal death; many pass unregenerate as debtors of eternal death—as we have it from Prosper. So Arminius’s view, which grants no reprobation except from the reprobate’s foreseen unbelief and perseverance in it, was always rejected and condemned by the whole orthodox church’s reckoning.

Latin

Prosper etiam eandem sententiam ubique amplectitur: De lib. arbitr. ad Ruffin. In infantibus nec praecedens eligitur, nec futura devotio. In Epistola ad Augustinum, Parvuli, inquit, nullas adhuc habentes voluntates, nullas proprias actiones, non sine Dei judicio secernuntur, cum alii per regenerationem inter caelestis regni assumantur heredes, alii sine Baptismo inter mortis perpetuae transeant debitores. Denique ut brevi absolvam, constans fuit totius Ecclesiae catholicae sententia, (reservatis semper Deo arcanis suis) Infantes omnes nasci reos mortis aeternae, multos non regeneratos, et transire debitores mortis aeternae, ut ex Prospero accepimus. Arminii igitur sententia, quae reprobationem nullam concedit nisi ex praevisa reprobatorum infidelitate et perseverantia in eadem, fuit semper totius Ecclesiae orthodoxae calculo rejecta et condemnata.

Report a mistake in this passage

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.

Printed text used

Also checked PDF of the 1650 (Latin · print facsimile)
Also checked DjVu machine-read text of the 1650 (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake