Two Dissertations · §602 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: predestination is ordination with infallible event; reprobation denies unfrustrable special operation — Bellarmine: God not bound to give sufficient grace to all

The reason is the same either way. Predestination is not just any ordination to a supernatural end by media however sufficient — it is ordination joined to an infallible outcome. Reprobation does not deny every ordination to a supernatural end, but the unfrustrable ordination that comes from the ordaining God's device and special operation producing the very event of salvation. Finally: that sufficient media of salvation are given to all is asserted with more confidence than it is proved with ease. I will not enter that dispute now — it is not needed to solve the argument before us. One note only: Bellarmine, who defends this sufficient-grace view, first grants that God would do no injustice if he denied that sufficient grace to some or to all (De grat. et lib. Arb. 2.4). So God is bound to it by no pact or promise. How then e the adversaries promise every person sufficient grace that God never promised?

Latin

Ratio utrobique eadem est; Quia praedestinatio non dicit quamlibet ordinationem ad finem supernaturalem per media quantovis sufficientia, sed ordinationem cum exitu et eventu infallibili copulatam; neque reprobatio negat omnem ordinationem ad finem supernaturalem, sed ordinationem infrustrabilem ex inventione et speciali operatione Dei ordinantis, ipsum salutis eventum producentem. Denique, sufficientia media ad salutem omnibus dari, non tanta facilitate probatur quanta confidentia affirmatur. Non jam ingrediar hanc disputationem, quia ad solutionem argumenti propositi (uti accepistis) non est necesse. Illud solummodo annotabo, Bellarminum, qui hanc de sufficiente gratia sententiam tuetur, primo concedere nobis, quod nulla esset in Deo iniquitas si negaret aliquibus vel omnibus hanc gratiam sufficientem, De grat. et lib. arb. l. 2. cap. 4. Hinc colligimus, Deum nullo pacto aut promissione ad hoc obligatum: Quomodo igitur adversarii audent promittere omnibus et singulis gratiam sufficientem, quam Deus non promisit?

Report a mistake in this passage

About this text

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.

Printed text used

Also checked PDF of the 1650 (Latin · print facsimile)
Also checked DjVu machine-read text of the 1650 (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake