Two Dissertations · §95 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 6 open: If grace turns on human disparity, Gospel and faith get an easy human account

Suppose Christ's death is granted, and yet by God's decree the gift or denial of grace to particular persons does not proceed from the absolute liberty of the divine will, but from the disparity of human wills and actions. Then anyone can give a ready reason why the Gospel was withheld from this nation and granted to that one, and why these particular people receive faith and vivifying, regenerating grace while others do not. Of those who have it, the story runs: they got the light of the Gospel because they used nature's light well, or at least less badly. Of those who lack it: they stay without Gospel light because they used nature's light less well. Ask among Christians why this person has faith and regenerating grace and that one does not, and you hear the same human ledger—those who have it willed to believe and would not raise an obstacle; those who lack it would not believe and would not clear the obstacle away. Of the special calling according to purpose, by which God powerfully turns the hearts of those he specially chooses to pity toward belief, there is meantime not a word.

Latin

Si supposita morte Christi, ex decreto Dei donatio aut denegatio gratiae singularibus personis, non ex absoluta libertate voluntatis Divinae, sed ex disparitate voluntatum & actionum humanarum procedat, tum facile & promptum est cuivis rationem reddere cur huic nationi denegatum fuerit Evangelium, cur alteri concessum; & cur hisce singularibus hominibus detur fides, gratia vivificans & regenerans, aliis non detur. Ex parte etenim habentium respondetur, Eos Evangelii luce donatos, quia luce naturae bene, aut minus male, usi fuerint; Ex parte non-habentium respondetur, Eos Evangelii luce destitutos manere, quia lumine naturae minus bene usi fuerint. Sic inter Christianos, si quaeratur cur hic fidem habet & gratiam regenerantem, ille non habet; ex parte habentium etiam respondetur, Quia voluerunt credere, & noluerunt obicem ponere; ex parte non-habentium, Quia noluerunt credere, quia noluerunt obicem gratiae removere. Interim de speciali & secundum propositum vocatione, qua Deus eorum quos specialiter misereri vult corda potenter flectit ad credendum, verbum nullum.

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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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