Two Dissertations · §98 · John Davenant

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: Augustine—actual share in grace rests on secret good pleasure, not free application

Augustine too, everywhere, traces actual share in grace to this secret good pleasure of God—not to the difference among human wills that, by their native freedom, do or do not apply themselves to grace offered. De bono perseverantiae 8: of two already adult ungodly persons, why one is called so that he follows the Caller, while the other is either not called, or not called so as to follow—God's judgments are inscrutable. And De praedestinatione sanctorum 8: "Why," he asks, "does God not teach everyone? If we say it is because those he does not teach refuse to learn, the reply comes: Where then is the word, LORD, YOU TURN US AND GIVE US LIFE?"

Latin

Ad hoc arcanum Dei beneplacitum, non ad discrimen voluntatum humanarum sese ad gratiam oblatam pro sua innata libertate applicantium vel non applicantium, ipse etiam Augustinus ubique refert gratiae actualem participationem: De bono persever. cap. 8. Ex duobus aetate jam grandibus impiis, cur iste ita vocetur ut vocantem sequatur, ille autem aut non vocetur, aut non ita vocetur ut vocantem sequatur, inscrutabilia sunt judicia Dei. Et De praed. Sanct. cap. 8. Quare, inquit, non omnes docet Deus? Si dixerimus, quia nolunt discere quos non docet, respondebitur nobis, ubi est quod dicitur, DOMINE, TU CONVERTENS VIVIFICABIS NOS.

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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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