Two Dissertations · §96 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: That easy human account of obtained grace is Pelagian—Rom. 9 and Phil. 2

I add this: to give so ready a reason, from the human side, why grace is obtained or missed is the Pelagian trademark—and every orthodox writer has condemned it. The orthodox have always traced the gift or denial of efficacious grace back to the secret purpose of God's good pleasure. They never held that, once Christ's death is granted, God is so bound to administer his grace indiscriminately that having it or lacking it turns on the disparity of human wills. We do not deny that those who stay without grace have earned their unworthiness and choose their wickedness. We do say that everyone labors under that disease until special grace cures it; and that no unregenerate person pulls grace to himself by a better will. Rather, by a more efficacious grace given from God's mere good pleasure, he receives a better will—as the Apostle says: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16). "It is God who gives us both to will and to accomplish, according to his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

Latin

Jam addo, ex parte hominis reddere tam obviam rationem gratiae obtentae aut non obtentae, est Pelagianorum proprium, & ab omnibus orthodoxis damnatum: qui gratiae efficacis donationem aut negationem ad arcanum propositum beneplaciti Divini semper revocarunt; neque putarunt, posita Christi morte, Deum ita teneri ad gratiam suam promiscue administrandam, ut eandem habere vel non habere ex disparitate humanarum voluntatum dependeret. Non negamus eorum demeritam indignitatem & improbitatem voluntariam, qui gratiae expertes manent, sed omnes hoc morbo laborare asserimus, donec specialis gratiae remedio curentur: nec irregenitorum quenquam per voluntatem meliorem trahere ad se gratiam, sed per gratiam efficaciorem ex mero Dei beneplacito illi donatam accipere voluntatem meliorem, juxta illud Apostoli, Non est volentis, neque currentis, sed miserentis Dei, Rom. ix. 16. Deus est qui dat nobis & velle & perficere pro bona sua voluntate, Phil. ii. 13.

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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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