Two Dissertations · §794 · John Davenant

Cap. X Ultimum Propos. 2: why not to all need not trouble the believer who holds just condemnation in Adam; Epist. 107 — Grace of God is not given to all men

Why it is not given to all need not trouble the believer who holds that from one all went into most just condemnation. Not to pile witnesses: I add only Epistle 107, where among twelve sentences he affirms belong to catholic faith, the second is: The grace of God is not given to all men.

Latin

Cur autem non omnibus detur, fidelem movere non debet, qui credit ex uno omnes isse in condemnationem justissimam. Ne nimis multus sim in accumulandis testimoniis, illud unicum adjungam quod exstat Epistola cvii. in qua, inter duodecim illas sententias quae ad fidem Catholicam pertinere affirmat, haec secunda est, Gratiam Dei non dari omnibus hominibus.

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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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