Two Dissertations · §791 · John Davenant

Cap. X Ultimum Propos. 1 close: illuminating/exciting grace is not the Grace of Christ Orthodoxy pressed — that grace creates the good will; received grace is not wage of a non-resisting will

Why so much on the grace of Christ? So it is clear from Orthodox common consent: the illuminating, warning, exciting grace that—if Arminians are believed—fails no mortal, yet in many lacks a saving effect, is not the Grace of Christ to whose acknowledgment the Orthodox meant to drive Pelagius. That grace creates the good will, sanctifies the man, and at last infallibly produces salvation’s effect. The Master of the Sentences knew this sense (lib. 2, dist. 26, lit. D): Grace preventing and preparing the will is faith with love. So Aquinas (1a2ae q.111 a.3) when he assigned it five effects: that the soul be healed, will the good, work the good it wills, persevere in the good, and reach glory. Let this stand fixed: received Grace of Christ is not the wage of a non-resisting will; the non-resisting will is the effect of that grace given and received. Enough for the first proposition.

Latin

Quorsum haec tam multa de gratia Christi? Ut intelligatur, Ex communi consensu Orthodoxorum, gratiam illam illuminatricem, monitricem, et excitatricem, quae nulli mortalium deest (si credimus Arminianis) quaeque effectu salutifero in plurimis caret, non esse eam gratiam Christi, ad cujus agnitionem Pelagium adigere Orthodoxi voluerunt; sed eam quae voluntatem bonam creat, hominem sanctificat, ac denique effectum salutis infallibiliter producit. Hunc esse sensum hujus vocabuli non latuit Magistrum Sententiarum, lib. 2. dist. 26. lit. D. Gratia, inquit, voluntatem praeveniens et praeparans, est fides cum dilectione. Hanc etiam gratiam intellexit Aquinas, 1. 2. qu. 111. art. 3. quando quinque effecta ei assignavit, nempe, ut anima sanetur, ut bonum velit, ut bonum quod vult operetur, ut in bono perseveret, ut ad gloriam perveniat. Maneat ergo hoc fixum et stabilitum, Gratiam Christi receptam non esse mercedem voluntatis non-resistentis, sed non-resistentem voluntatem esse effectum hujus gratiae donatae ac receptae. Atque haec ad primae propositionis explicationem abunde sufficiant.

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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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