Two Dissertations · §111 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Primo: Augustine—some not called; media withheld by the abyss of predestination

First, the Fathers who deny that—Christ's death granted—the grace of Gospel preaching is owed or given to all, and even say it is withheld from some by the purpose of God's will. That could not happen if grace were owed to everyone on the strength of Christ's death. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 8: take two ungodly adults—why is one called so that he follows the Caller, while the other is not called, or not called that way? God's judgments are inscrutable. He plainly owns that some are not called at all. Chapter 14 adds that for some not cut out of the mass of perdition by God's higher judgment, the means by which they could believe are simply not applied. In both places he affirms that the means are denied, and he traces it to the unsearchable depth of divine predestination—not to uneven human wills or works, the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian habit. Chapter 11 says the same: God chooses not to help some, and that rests on his will and hidden predestination.

Latin

Primo illa afferemus quae gratiam Evangelicae praedicationis, supposita Christi morte, omnibus debitam aut datam negant, imo aliquibus negatam affirmant, idque ex proposito voluntatis Divinae: quod nunquam fieret, si omnibus gratia debita esset in ordine ad mortem Christi. Augustinus, De bono persever. cap. 8. Ex duobus aetate grandibus impiis, cur iste ita vocetur ut vocantem sequatur, ille autem aut non vocetur aut non ita vocetur, inscrutabilia sunt judicia Dei. Hic aperte agnoscit quosdam omnino non vocari. Et cap. 14. docet, quibusdam qui Dei altiori judicio a perditionis massa non sunt discreti, ea media non adhiberi per quae possent credere. Utroque in loco negationem mediorum asserit, et revocat ad inscrutabilem abyssum praedestinationis Divinae, non ad discrimina voluntatum aut actionum humanarum, sicut Pelagiani et Semipelagiani solebant. Vide etiam cap. 11. ubi ad voluntatem Dei et occultam praedestinationem refert, quod quibusdam Deus nolit subvenire.

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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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