Two Dissertations · §103 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 7: They reverse the order—obstacle cleared because efficacious grace was given

As if they said grace is efficacious in this or that particular person because he himself raised no obstacle—when they ought to have said he raised none because God, of his own good pleasure, gave him efficacious grace. I now add the Minor, and I affirm it is wholly alien to theology and to truth for anyone to hold that Christ's death established a decree by which the sure attainment of grace and salvation is shifted from God's absolute will onto the free choice of the human will.

Latin

Quasi dicerent, gratiam in hac vel illa persona singulari esse efficacem, quia ipse obicem non opposuit: cum dicere debuissent, ideo obicem non opposuisse, quia Deus pro beneplacito suo dederit illi gratiam efficacem. Jam vero adjungo Minorem, & affirmo, esse a Theologia & veritate prorsus alienum, si quis tueatur Christi morte tale decretum stabilitum, juxta quod, certa gratiae & salutis adeptio ab absoluta Dei voluntate ad arbitrium humanae voluntatis revocetur.

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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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