Two Dissertations · §787 · John Davenant

Cap. X Ultimum Propos. 1.III: the Grace of Christ the Fathers pressed is what Pelagius and Arminius explode as free will’s coercive — Bishop of Salisbury De vera grat. Christi p.60

III. What remains in this first proposition: what grace Augustine with the other Orthodox contended Pelagius must acknowledge—and which they named by excellence the Grace of Christ. We affirm it was none other than the grace Pelagius and Arminius explode as free will’s coercive. We cannot paint it in fitter words than the Reverend Bishop of Salisbury (De vera gratia Christi, p. 60): This is the true grace Christian faith owns and believes, by which God gives his laws into our minds and writes them on our hearts; by which, when he requires our will, he himself makes us will; when he bids convert, he makes us convert at once; when he demands faith, by his gift he makes us believe.

Latin

III. Veniamus ad illud quod in hac prima propositione nostra restat explicandum; Qualis nimirum fuerit ea gratia, quam Augustinus una cum reliquis Orthodoxis a Pelagio agnosci contendebant, quamque per excellentiam Gratiam Christi indigitabant. Affirmamus autem, non aliam fuisse quam hanc quam Pelagius et Arminius quasi liberi arbitrii coactivum exploserunt. Non possumus autem eam aptioribus vocabulis depingere, quam depicta est a Reverendo Episcopo Sarisburiensi, De vera grat. Christi, pag. 60. Haec, inquit ille, est vera gratia, quam Christiana fides agnoscit et credit, qua Deus dat leges suas in mentes nostras, et in cordibus nostris inscribit eas; qua ubi requirit voluntatem nostram, facit ipse ut velimus; ubi converti jubet, facit simul ut convertamur; ubi fidem postulat, facit dono suo ut credamus.

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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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