John Davenant DD (1576-1641)

Bishop John Davenant (1576-1641) was quite a remarkable man, a saint and a scholar.  He graduated from Cambridge University Davenant (1576-1641) was awarded a DD at the age of 33 and was made Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University in 1609. He became Bishop of Salisbury in 1621, a position he was to occupy until his death in 1641, the year of the rebellion in Ireland, when the Catholics rose up against the Protestants, and murdered many of them (figures range from 20,000 to 300,000). He is best remembered, perhaps, for his work at the famous Synod of Dort (1614-1618), and for his commentary on Paul's letter to the Colossians, which was published in Cambridge in 1627. 

Davenant's theology of salvation really came to public notice in his reply to Samuel Hoard, rector of Morton in Essex when he wrote a thoroughly Arminian tract which in essence attacked moderate, or Anglican, Calvinism.  Davenant's reply was couched in the same terms that he argued while one of the English representatives at the Synod of Dort.  What is particularly striking is that in France, another reply to Hoard came from a professor at the Reformed Academy at Saumur, written by Moise Amyraut.  In it Amyraut defended the doctrine of John Calvin against this theological onslaught.

When these two replies are compaed, the difference between them does not make a diference.  Davenant defended English Calvinism while in exactly the same terms, Amyraut defended Calvin's Calvinism.  This tract developed into his famous Dissertation on the Death of Christ. Originally appearing at the end of volume two of Davenants' two-volume commentary on Colossians, when this commentary was republished by the Banner of Truth in 2005, quite inexplicably this dissertation nowhere appears in that volume.  The reason given by Banner for its omission was two-fold: first, they had already published John Owen's Death of Death in the Death of Christ, as well as George Smeaton's two volumes on The Atonement.  In an email to me dated 30th January 2006, the Banner stated that it regarded this dissertation of Davenant's as of less value, presumably theologically and economically, than these other two volumes.

That said, to excise a major part of an original publication, while that part is referred to in the new publication, is to be guilty of something like dishonesty. 

What in essence did Davenant believe about the atonement?

"The death of Christ is the universal cause of the salvation of mankind, and Christ himself is acknowledged to have died for all men sufficiently ... by reason of the Evangelical covenant confirmed with the whole human race through the merit of his death."

So Bishop Davenant believed that Christ died for all men, which means that there is sufficient merit in Christ's death to save the entire human race, on condition of faith.  Quoting Mark 16:15-16, Davenant adds that "the learned Calvin has rightly remarked, that 'this promise was added that it might allure the whole human race to the faith.'"

From a cursory reading of Calvin's sermons and commentaries, it is unmissable to note that he believed that Christ died for all.  If only our reformed ministers were to read Calvin himself and not just take the word Calvinists, they would be shocked, and their entire theological system would be thrown into disarray.  However, it is very likely that despite what Calvin writes and preaches they would change their views, and why?  Because they view confessional correctness to be much more important than being biblically correct.  They prefer their cosy theological system to that of the teaching of the Scriptures, and the great expositors of the Bible as seen in men like Calvin, or Davenant, or Baxter, or Calamy, or Edwards or Chalmers or McCheyne or Ryle or Lloyd-Jones.  


Calvin was an evangelist at heart, and his evangelistic emphasis in his sermons is there to be seen and emulated by those preachers who claim Calvin as their theological mentor.


Calvin was not an Episcopalian in church government but a Presbyterian; but he was much closer to the Anglican understanding of the atonement than he was to much Presbyterian soteriology, as expounded in the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Those who profess to be followers of Calvin must ensure that their understanding of the Gospel and of salvation agrees with their professed mentor.