Two Dissertations · §443 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 2: 2 Tim. 1:9; Prosper — this grace barred by no evil merits, bought by no good

So Paul: he saved us and called us with a holy calling — not from our works, but from his purpose and grace (2 Tim. 1:9). Prosper (Response to the Gallican Chapters, 8): no evil merits bar this grace, no good ones purchase it. Augustine (On the Grace of Christ, ch. 29): it makes us will, makes us act, makes us believe, and works good wills in men.

Latin

Sic loquitur Apostolus, Servavit nos, et vocavit vocatione sancta, non ex operibus nostris, sed ex suo proposito et gratia. 2 Tim. i. 9. Haec gratia nullis malis meritis arcetur, nullis bonis impetratur, Prosper, ad Cap. Gallor. resp. 8. Haec gratia facit ut velimus, facit ut faciamus, facit ut credamus. Haec gratia bonas voluntates in hominibus operatur, Augustinus, De grat. Christi, cap. 29.

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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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