Two Dissertations · §598 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: universal sufficient grace is a slippery postulate — Vasquez grants some infants never received sufficient media of salvation

The claim that sufficient grace is prepared and administered to all is very slippery — and even among patrons of universal grace it lacks full firm consent. Vasquez (as we noted before), constrained by the clear evidence, grants that for some infants sufficient media of salvation providence and were not applied by divine providence (In T. Aquin. Disp. 95.6). So for these little ones perishing in original sin we can turn their argument back: infants for whom sufficient media were never prepared or administered were rejected without regard to actual unbelief or final impenitence.

Latin

Illud de gratia sufficiente omnibus parata et administrata postulatum valde lubricum est, et inter ipsos gratiae universalis patronos nondum pleno et firmo consensu approbatum. Vasques (quod ante annotavimus) ipsa rei evidentia convictus concedit, quibusdam infantibus sufficientia salutis media neque humana ulla providentia potuisse applicari, neque Divina providentia fuisse applicata, In T. Aquin. disp. 95. cap. 6. Possumus igitur, quoad hosce parvulos in originali peccato sic pereuntes, retorquere hanc rationem hoc modo: Quibus infantibus media sufficientia praeparata et administrata non fuerunt, illi rejecti fuerunt sine consideratione actualis infidelitatis, aut finalis impoenitentiae.

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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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