Two Dissertations · §277 · John Davenant

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1 close: electing will causes merits — sum before Rat. 2

Clear why: that free will of God before our merits or good works is itself their cause. How then call the will presupposed to merits common, equal, and indifferent to all, when in some it effects those "merits" and in others not? Effect differs; so does the cause. Hear Augustine again (never enough): true grace is not given by our merits but gives the merits when given — it goes before a good will, finds it in no heart, and makes it. Sum of our answer: the divine will before foresight of good works is not equal or indifferent about everyone's salvation, since in some God wills grace-works that lead to glory and in others he does not. So they wrongly start the efficacious saving will for the elect from foresight of merits — that will already shows itself in willing to give those merits, which will came before merit-foresight and ordered those merits to salvation.

Latin

Hoc ex eo liquet, quia haec ipsa gratuita voluntas Dei, quae praecedit merita sive bona opera nostra, est causa horum meritorum: Quomodo igitur dicamus illam Dei voluntatem quae meritis praesupponitur esse communem, aequalem & indifferentem quoad omnes, cum in aliquibus efficiat haec ipsa quae vocantur merita, in aliis non efficiat? Manifestum apparet discrimen in effectu; ergo intelligitur etiam in ipsa causa. Audiamus iterum (quem nunquam satis audire possumus) loquentem Augustinum: Vera Dei gratia est, quae non secundum merita nostra datur, sed quae dat merita ipsa cum datur, quia praevenit hominis voluntatem bonam, nec eam cujusquam invenit in corde, sed facit. Sic itaque haec summa responsionis nostrae: Non esse aequalem aut indifferentem de omnium salute illam Dei voluntatem, quae antecedit praescientiam bonorum operum, quandoquidem in aliquibus vult Deus producere haec opera gratiae, quae ducant ad gloriam, in aliis non vult: Male ergo inferunt, ex praevisione meritorum incipere efficacem Dei voluntatem de danda salute electis, cum ea manifeste se exerat in illa voluntate dandi haec ipsa merita, quae voluntas praevisionem meritorum praecessit, atque ad salutem haec ipsa illorum merita ordinavit.

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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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