Two Dissertations · §122 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Fathers reply: Prosper—grace given makes obedience; De vocat. Gent. on hidden election

Hear others too. Prosper: Who doubts that free choice obeys so great a call from the Caller, when in that choice God’s grace has already generated the affection of believing and obeying? So God’s grace is not given to the will on condition that it obey; once given, it makes the will obey. The same writer, On the Calling of the Gentiles 1.18: for people of every condition and age, the cause of receiving grace is God’s will, with whom the reason of election is hidden—merits begin from that grace which they receive without merits. Note the witness. Even if this author (whoever he was) holds that helps of grace have not been wholly withdrawn from anyone, he still does not think grace stands ready and offered to all in such a way that the difference—why this person received it and that one did not—is traced to one willing to take and the other willing to resist. He reduces the cause of grace received to God’s hidden election; and, as far as non-reception is a mere negation, he reduces that too to hidden non-election. If you treat it as a moral omission by people who resist grace, then refer it to human viciousness. But that is by the way.

Latin

Sed alios etiam audiamus. Prosper: Quis ambigat liberum arbitrium tantae cohortationi vocantis obedire, cum in illo gratia Dei affectum credendi obediendique generavit? Gratia igitur Dei non datur arbitrio sub conditione, si obediat, sed data facit ut obediat. Idem, De vocat. Gent. l. 1. c. 18. Omnibus hominibus cujuslibet conditionis et aetatis causa percipiendae gratiae voluntas Dei est, apud quem ratio electionis abscondita est, ab ea gratia incipientibus meritis quam accipere sine meritis. Notandum est hoc testimonium: quia licet hic Autor (quicunque fuerit) nullis hominibus opem gratiae in totum fuisse subtractam defendit, tamen non ita praestare et offerri omnibus arbitratur, ut discrimen, cur hic eam perceperit, ille non perceperit, eo revocetur, quod hic voluerit accipere, ille resistere: sed reducit causam gratiae perceptae ad absconditam electionem Dei; et per consequens etiam non-receptae, quatenus est mera negatio, ad absconditam non-electionem Dei. Si tamen consideretur ut moralis omissio ex parte hominum gratiae resistentium, tum referendum est ad vitiositatem humanam. Sed haec obiter.

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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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