Two Dissertations · §107 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 8: Do not stretch the word grace beyond just limits—Pelagian abuse

One caution first. When we say the orthodox Fathers who fought Pelagius refuse to grant that grace is given to all merely because of Christ's death, we are not letting the word grace run loose past its proper bounds—the very move the Pelagians once made. Anything God freely grants to people can, in a loose sense, be called grace.

Latin

Hoc unum tamen praemitto a vobis observandum. Quando dicimus Patres orthodoxos, qui in acie steterunt contra Pelagium et Pelagianos, non admittere gratiam omnibus dari propter respectum ad mortem Christi, Gratiae vocabulum (quod Pelagiani olim faciebant) extra justos suos limites non esse extendendum. Quicquid enim gratiose hominibus conceditur a Deo, potest aliquo sensu gratia appellari.

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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.

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