Two Dissertations · §800 · John Davenant

Cap. X Ultimum Propos. 3: Augustine on Pelagius — grace to the worthy; Prosper’s chronicle; Faustus — attracting mercy if given to the worthy

So Augustine on Pelagius himself (De gestis Palaestinis 14): he held God gives this grace to whoever is worthy to receive it. And Haeresis 88: the Pelagian error was that the grace by which we are freed from impiety is given according to our merits. Prosper’s Chronicle for 414: in that season Pelagius the Briton put forth his dogma against Christ’s grace, preaching that each is ruled to righteousness by his own will and receives as much grace as he deserves. For the Semipelagians hear their leader Faustus (lib. 1, c. 17): If the attracting God’s mercy is given to the worthy, you see it is already also spent on somehow serving by human effort. A little later: in the one you see attracting, he requires in every way a keeper of the precepts, so that by a little handle of will the called may be grasped.

Latin

Sic de Pelagio ipso scribit Augustinus, eum nempe tenuisse, donare Deum hanc gratiam ei qui fuerit dignus accipere, Cap. 14. De gestis Palaestinis. Et Haer. 88. idem Pater testatur Pelagianorum errorem fuisse, Quod gratia Dei qua liberamur ab impietate, secundum merita nostra detur. Sic etiam Prosper in Chron. ad annum 414. scribit, Hac tempestate Pelagius Brito dogma nominis sui contra gratiam Christi exserit, praedicans, unumquemque ad justitiam propria voluntate regi, tantamque accipere gratiam quantum meruerit. Jam pro Semipelagianis loquatur Faustus illorum antesignanus, Attrahentis Dei misericordia si dignis datur, advertis quia jam et studio humanae utcunque servitutis impenditur, Lib. 1. cap. 17. Paulo post, In quem perspicis attrahentem, requirit omnimodis praecepta servantem, ut per quandam voluntatis ansulam comprehendi valeat qui vocatur.

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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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