Two Dissertations · §92 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 5: Absolute liberty of God in first-grace—Matt. 20 and Rom. 9

First, absolute liberty of God in giving first grace then shines out—an attribute everyone must acknowledge here. "I choose to give to this one as to you," even when human merits are unequal, is God asserting his own liberty (Matthew 20:14). And "I choose to give to this one, and not to you," where on the human side everything is equal, is a voice just as worthy of God, and likewise serves to display his supreme liberty, as Paul proves (Romans 9). For although by the power and efficacy of Christ's death God willed himself bound to give remission to believers, and glory to the regenerate grafted into Christ, yet he did not will himself bound—by any act of theirs, or any disposition of theirs considered in corrupt nature outside Christ—to give the Gospel to these nations or these particular persons, or to give faith and efficacious grace to these definite individuals. So those who teach that grace is given or denied according to the good or bad use of nature diminish the divine liberty God reserved for himself: which is as much as to say that nature anticipates grace.

Latin

Primo, inde elucebit absoluta libertas Dei in primae gratiae collatione: quod Divinum attributum hac in re est omnibus agnoscendum. Volo huic dare sicut & tibi, etiam in disparibus hominum meritis, Dei vox est libertatem suam sibi asserentis, Matth. xx. 14. Sed & illud, Volo huic dare, & non tibi, ubi omnia ex parte hominum paria agnoscuntur, aeque Deo digna vox est, & pariter spectat ad illustrandam Dei supremam libertatem, ut Paulus probat Rom. ix. Nam quamvis Deus virtute & efficacia mortis Christi ad dandam remissionem credentibus, ac ad dandam gloriam regeneratis & in Christum insertis sese obstrictum esse voluit, tamen ad dandum Evangelium hisce nationibus aut hisce singularibus hominibus, aut ad dandam fidem & gratiam efficacem hisce determinatis personis, nulla eorundem actione, nulla eorundem dispositione in statu naturae corruptae extra Christum considerata, voluit sese obligatum. Imminuunt igitur eam libertatem Divinam, quam Deus sibi reservavit, qui docent gratiam communicari & negari hominibus pro bono & malo usu naturae: quod idem est ac si dicerent, Gratiam a natura praeveniri.

Report a mistake in this passage

About this text

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.

Printed text used

Also checked PDF of the 1650 (Latin · print facsimile)
Also checked DjVu machine-read text of the 1650 (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake