Two Dissertations · §97 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: Prosper—many hear; wills prepared or not; mercy and judgment in the wills

Prosper brings the difference between believers and unbelievers back to the same point (Ad excerpta Genuensium, reply to Doubt 4): "Many hear the word of truth, but some believe and others contradict—so these will to believe, and those will not. Who does not know that? Who denies it? Yet when the Lord prepares the will for some and does not prepare it for others, we must ask what comes of mercy and what of judgment." And a little later: "Mercy and judgment have been done in the wills themselves."

Latin

Huc revocat Prosper discrimen credentium & non-credentium, Ad excerpta Genuens. resp. ad Dub. 4. Multi audiunt verbum veritatis, sed alii credunt, alii contradicunt: volunt ergo isti credere, nolunt illi. Quis hoc ignoret? quis hoc neget? Sed cum aliis praeparetur, aliis non praeparetur voluntas a Domino, discutiendum est utique quod veniat de misericordia, quod de judicio. Et paulo post, Misericordia & judicium in ipsis voluntatibus facta sunt.

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