Two Dissertations · §766 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. X close: reprobates lack saving grace because they are not what God requires — that itself proves antecedent rejection; Col. i. 12; no middle between election and reprobation

Finally Corvinus says saving grace is not given to the reprobate because by their fault they are not such as God prerequires, this very thing itself proves they were antecedently rejected or passed by. For God has decreed to make all the elect such as he is wont to prerequire for laying hold of grace and glory (Col. I. 12). Those he has not made such, he has not elected; and since there is no middle between election and reprobation, he has reprobated them. After so many twists we must come back here: those not given the grace of faith, repentance, and perseverance we acknowledge as passed by in the ordination to everlasting life; those for whom these were prepared and given we confess as elect. And as some were mercifully elected to these goods before foresight of them as existing in them, so some were passed by and not predestined to receive such things before they were foreseen as finally lacking them.

Latin

Denique, quod dicit Corvinus, reprobis non dari gratiam salutiferam, quia sua culpa tales non sunt, quales Deus praerequirit, hoc ipsum arguit eos fuisse antecedenter rejectos sive praeteritos: Nam Deus decrevit omnes electos tales efficere, quales ad capessendum gratiam et gloriam ipse solet praerequirere, Coloss. i. 12. Quos ergo tales non effecit, eos non elegit; et quia non datur medium inter electionem et reprobationem, eosdem reprobavit. Post tot anfractus et gyros huc itaque redeamus oportet, ut quibus gratia fidei, poenitentiae et perseverantiae data non fuerit, eos in ordinatione ad vitam aeternam praeteritos agnoscamus; sicut e contra, eos quibus haec fuerunt praeparata et donata, electos confiteamur. Atque ut quidam electi fuerunt misericorditer ad haec bona ante praevisionem eorundem ut in illis existentium, ita quidam praeteriti fuerunt, et ad talia accipienda haud praedestinati, antequam praeviderentur ut talibus bonis finaliter carentes.

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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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