Two Dissertations · §481 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 10: Augustine and Prosper — depth of grace not opened by free choice

Far otherwise Augustine (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.6): why he makes these sheep and not those — who shows no favoritism, is the very question that belongs to that height. And Prosper (On the Calling of the Gentiles 1.23): in vain they try to open the depth of inscrutable grace by free choice, who plant election's cause in the merits of the elect. And in the last chapter: that question's depth, which with the Apostle's wonder we confess unsearchable, is not solved by free choice's willing and refusing.

Latin

At longe aliter sanctus Augustinus Contr. 2. Epistol. Pelag. lib. 4. cap. 6: Quare istos oves facit, et istos non facit, apud quem non est acceptio personarum, ipsa est quaestio quae pertinet ad illam altitudinem, etc. Et Prosper, De vocat. gent. lib. 1. cap. 23: Frustra profunditatem inscrutabilis gratiae per liberum arbitrium conantur aperire, qui causam electionis in eorum constituunt meritis qui eliguntur. Et cap. ultimo: Profunditas illius quaestionis, quam secundum admirationem Apostoli impervestigabilem confitemur, per liberi arbitrii velle et nolle non solvitur.

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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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