Two Dissertations · §167 · John Davenant

Cap. 7 Patrum: Augustine De natura & grat. 5 — vessels of mercy only

3. A third witness from the same Augustine is On nature and grace, chapter 5: Those who are delivered are called not vessels of their own merits, but vessels of mercy. Whose mercy, if not his who sent Christ Jesus into this world to save sinners? Whom he foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. As if to say: by a decree of special mercy God sent Christ to deliver and save the predestined efficaciously and infallibly — and in that sense they alone are vessels of mercy. Piling up more Augustine would be wasted work. Anyone at home in him knows his teaching on the absolute predestination of some to eternal life, and on the eternal gift of those same persons to Christ the Mediator so that he may lead them to that life without fail. That predestination, gift, and leading cannot be understood — or even thought — without this special intention of applying his death and merits to them. See On the Predestination of the Saints 18; On the gift of perseverance 7; On rebuke and grace 9.

Latin

3. Tertium ejusdem Augustini testimonium proferemus ex libro De natura & grat. cap. 5. quod ita se habet, Qui liberantur, non vasa meritorum suorum, sed vasa misericordiae nominantur. Cujus misericordiae, nisi illius qui Christum Jesum misit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere? Quos praescivit, & praedestinavit, & vocavit, & justificavit, & glorificavit. Quasi dixisset, Deum ex specialis misericordiae decreto misisse Christum pro liberandis & salvandis praedestinatis efficaciter & infallibiliter; quo sensu illi soli dicuntur vasa misericordiae. Supervacaneum esset ex Augustino plura congerere, cujus sententia de absoluta praedestinatione quorundam ad vitam aeternam, deque aeterna datione eorundem Christo Mediatori, ut ab eo infallibiliter perducantur ad eandem, est omnibus in Augustino versatis notissima. Quae praedestinatio, donatio, perductio ad vitam aeternam, absque hac speciali intentione mortem ac merita sua illis applicandi, neque intelligi, neque cogitari potest. Videte caput 18. De Praed. Sanct. De bono persev. cap. 7. De cor. & grat. cap. 9.

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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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