Two Dissertations · §498 · John Davenant

Cap. VI Arg. 13: minor second — why faith in Peter not Judas? special free-choice act

Second: grace of God also means those supernatural gifts by which the Holy Spirit imbues, reshapes, and vivifies our souls — faith, charity, and the rest given to all the regenerate. On Arminius's view that grace too is given or withheld by the diverse merits of human wills. If election follows foresighted faith, why was that faith foresighted in Peter rather than Judas? They cannot claim special grace prepared for Peter in predestination caused him to believe — they explode that predestination and set faith prior to it. So they must fall back on a special free-choice act in Peter, specially fitting itself to means God supplied no less to Judas than to Peter for generating faith. What is that but to grant that admonishing or moving grace is offered from mere mercy to all alike, while vivifying grace of the will is conferred by each one's diverse merits in accepting or rejecting that prior grace?

Latin

Secundo, Gratia Dei dicuntur illa dona supernaturalia, quibus Spiritus sanctus imbuit, refingit et vivificat animas nostras, qualia sunt fides, charitas, reliquaque quibus omnes regenerati donantur. Haec etiam gratia juxta opinionem Arminii datur aut non datur pro diversis meritis humanarum voluntatum. Nam si electio ex fide praevisa consequatur, quaero unde haec fides in Petro potius quam in Juda fuerit praevisa. Non possunt obtendere specialem gratiam in praedestinatione Petro praeparatam causam fuisse quod is crediderit; quia hanc praedestinationem explodunt, et fidem praedestinatione priorem statuunt. Recurrant itaque necesse est ad specialem actum liberi arbitrii, in Petro specialiter sese accommodantis ad illa media, quae Deus ad fidem generandam non minus Judae quam Petro suppeditavit. At hoc quid aliud est, quam agnoscere gratiam monitricem, aut motricem humanae voluntatis ex mera Dei misericordia omnibus promiscue offerri, sed gratiam voluntatis vivificatricem pro diversis singulorum meritis in illa priore gratia accipienda aut repellenda conferri.

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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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