Two Dissertations · §537 · John Davenant

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Ad primum: De bono perseverantiae — deserting God concerns common exciting grace

To the first: when Augustine says men first desert God and thence merit to be deserted by God, he is not speaking of the denial of that efficacious special grace in whose denial we locate reprobation or praeterition proper. He means subtraction of a more common, exciting grace — which we grant is taken from men for demerits — yet so that without the prior preparation of that special grace they would already have fallen into this demerit of contumacy.

Latin

Ad primum: Quando Augustinus dicit, Homines prius deserere Deum, atque inde mereri ut deserantur a Deo, non spectat negationem hujus gratiae, quam efficacem et specialem vocamus, atque in hujus negatione hanc reprobationem sive praeteritionem proprie constitutam asserimus; sed gratiae communioris et excitantis subtractionem; quam fatemur propter demerita tolli hominibus, ita tamen ut sine praevia illa prioris gratiae specialis praeparatione, in hoc contumaciae demeritum incidissent.

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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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