Two Dissertations · §763 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. X reply: question is predestinating will to do or not do — God gave Peter faith eternally willed; not giving Judas proves preterition/reprobation

I answer: Corvinus has plainly forgotten what is under dispute. The question is not God’s will under any notion, but God’s will as predestinating to do or not do. This consequence is best and firmest: predestinating will to do or not do — God gave Peter faith eternally willed; not giving Judas proves that he was passed over and condemned

Latin

Respondeo, Corvinum immemorem plane esse qua de re disputetur. Non enim quaestio est de voluntate Dei sub qualibet notione, sed de voluntate Dei praedestinantis aliquid facere aut non facere. Est autem optima et firmissima consequentia; Deus dedit fidem, perseverantiam, et vitam aeternam Petro, Ergo voluntate praedestinante ab aeterno voluit illi dare fidem, perseverantiam et vitam aeternam. Et e contra non minus firma est illa: Deus non dedit Judae fidem, perseverantiam et vitam aeternam: Ergo illum praeteriit, non praedestinavit, reprobavit, tantis bonis afficere noluit.

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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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