Two Dissertations · §755 · John Davenant

Cap. X Arg. X: Augustine De praedest. sanct. 5 — common gifts do not discern; the grace that discerns good from evil is not common; God discerns you from another

Hear Augustine keeping Paul’s steps and teaching (De praedestinatione sanctorum 5): Are men set apart from men by gifts common to all? A little later: The grace that sets the good apart from the evil is not common to both. Still plainer: God sets you apart from another, to whom he has not given what he gave you.

Latin

Sed audiamus Augustinum Pauli vestigiis et doctrinae inhaerentem: De praedest. sanct. cap. 5. Numquid, inquit, per haec dona, quae omnibus communia sunt hominibus, discernuntur homines ab hominibus? Paulo post, Gratia quae bonos discernit a malis, non communis est et bonis et malis. Adhuc planius; Deus te discernit ab alio, cui non donavit, quod donavit tibi.

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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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