Two Dissertations · §125 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Bannes—supernatural helps not given to all; difference not from free choice

Dominicus Bannes, on Aquinas I q.22, last conclusion, p. 278: God, he says, decided from eternity—by a will either absolute or consequent—not to give supernatural helps to everyone. If anyone asks why he confers these gifts on certain people in particular and denies them to others, that hangs on God’s bare will; as Augustine and St Thomas teach, you should not hunt a further reason. A little later: So the Christian theologian who is humble should learn with St Thomas and Augustine to leave some things unknown rather than, with the curious, to know more than he ought, lest he slide into the Pelagian heresy by tracing this difference to free choice as its first cause and root—“because this one wanted to convert, and that one did not.” He also adds a line that cuts the sinews of Pelagian and Arminian theology: the will’s own concurrence is itself an effect that necessarily follows, by necessity of consequence, from efficacious divine help.

Latin

Dominicus Bannes in 1. Aquin. qu. 22. conclus. ult. pag. 278: Deus, inquit, ab aeterno statuit, voluntate vel absoluta vel consequenti, non dare omnibus supernaturalia auxilia. Quod si quis quaerat, quare potius quibusdam in singulari haec dona conferat, aliis vero deneget, hoc ex simplici Dei voluntate pendet, neque est ejus rei ratio quaerenda, ut docet Augustinus et D. Thomas. Paulo post, Discat ergo Theologus Christianus et humilis cum D. Thoma et Augustino ignorare potius quam cum curiosis sapere plusquam oportet sapere, ne incidat in haeresin Pelagianam, referendo hujusmodi differentiam in liberum arbitrium tanquam in primam illius causam et radicem, scilicet, Quia iste voluit converti, ille non voluit. Denique et illud addit, quod nervos incidit Pelagianae et Arminianae Theologiae, Ipsamet concurrentia liberi arbitrii effectus est necessario consequens necessitate consequentiae ex Divino auxilio efficaci.

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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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