Two Dissertations · §104 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 7: First Adam's liberty-resolved grace vs Christ's stronger grace that makes willing conquer

For that account of gaining or missing salvation which resolves into the liberty of human choice belonged to the first grace given to the first Adam—as Augustine well noted. But the grace given in Christ to all who are to be saved is far stronger: by it they will, and will so strongly, that in fact they always overcome the flesh's unwilling will. (See Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 11-12.)

Latin

Haec enim obtinendae aut non obtinendae salutis ratio, quae in libertatem arbitrii humani resolvitur, fuit primae gratiae, quae data est primo Adamo: ut bene observavit Augustinus: sed haec longe potentior est quae datur in Christo omnibus salvandis, qua fit ut velint, & tantum velint, ut reapse semper vincant reluctantem carnis voluntatem.

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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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