Two Dissertations · §604 · John Davenant

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol cont.: many adults lack immediate aid to believe — Bellarmine's 'posse' via creatures is a miserable defense of esse

Finally, among adults themselves, Bellarmine admits (ibid. c. 8), very many are not given immediate sufficient help to believe — only in this thin sense: they can know God through the creatures, can be stirred to believe that God is and rewards seekers, can be stirred by that faith to pray, and so (even without Gospel preaching) can obtain illumination in the faith from God, an angel, or some man. This is a poor defense: the question is about what is, and the answer only addresses what could be — you all see that. I touch it only in passing, to show unded is the claim that sufficient grace is given to every person, which our disputers lay as their cause's firmest base. I add nothing more: even if granted, it still does not solidly prove their cause, as we showed from the start.

Latin

Denique inter ipsos adultos quamplurimi sunt, fatente Bellarmino, ibid. c. 8. quibus sufficiens auxilium ad credendum non immediate conceditur, sed hoc solummodo sensu concessum intelligitur, quia possunt cognoscere per creaturas Deum esse, et possunt a Deo excitari ad credendum quod Deus sit, et quod inquirentibus se remunerator sit; et possunt tali fide excitari ad orandum Deum, et hoc modo (quamvis destituantur praedicatione Evangelii) possunt impetrare ut vel ab ipso Deo, vel ab Angelo, vel ab aliquo homine in cognitione fidei illuminentur. Quam misera sit haec defensio, quae cum quaestio instituatur de esse, respondet solummodo de posse, non dubito quin omnes intelligatis. Eam solummodo obiter perstringere volui, ut videatis quam male fundata sit haec propositio de sufficiente gratia omnibus et singulis donata, quam disputatores nostri substernunt tanquam solidissimum fundamentum causae suae. Plura non addo, quia licet concedatur, non tamen facit ad solidam causae probationem, uti ab initio ostendimus.

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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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