John Davenant (20 May 1572, in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

– 20 April 1641, in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

) was an English academic and

bishop of Salisbury The Bishop of Salisbury is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset. The see is in the City of Salisbury where the bishop's seat ...

from 1621. He also served as one of the English delegates to the

Synod of Dort The Synod of Dort (also known as the Synod of Dordt or the Synod of Dordrecht) was an international Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618–1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy caused by the rise of Arminianism. The fi ...

Life

He was educated at

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the oldest colleges of the university, founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. The college spans the River Cam, colloquially referred to as the "light s ...

, elected a fellow there in 1597, and was its

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

from 1614 to 1621. From 1609 onward, he served as the

Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity The Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity is the oldest professorship at the University of Cambridge. It was founded initially as a readership by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, in 1502. Since its re-endowment at the end o ...

, from which he was called away by

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...

to represent the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

at the

in 1618, along with Samuel Ward, Joseph Hall and George Carleton.

Views

At Dort there were divisions in the Anglican camp: A compromise pursued went in Davenant's direction. According to one interpretation of Davenant's views: Other interpretations see Davenant as distinguishing himself from the School of Saumur and from the views of

Moses Amyraut Moïse Amyraut, Latin Moyses Amyraldus (September 1596 – 8 January 1664), in English texts often Moses Amyraut, was a French Huguenot, Reformed theologian and metaphysician. He was the architect of Amyraldism, a Calvinist doctrine that made ...

. When French Amyraldians attempted to garner support, citing the views of members of the British delegation to the

, Davenant offered a reply by way of clarification in his tract, “On the controversy among the French divines,” in which he appears to make a distinction between his own views and those of the Amyraldians. Davenant sympathised with the aims of

John Dury John Dury (1596 in Edinburgh – 1680 in Kassel) was a Scottish Calvinist minister and an intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved ...

, as far as unifying Protestantism went, and wrote in his favour, a piece subsequently quoted by

Gerard Brandt Gerard Brandt (25 July 1626, Amsterdam – 12 October 1685, Amsterdam) was a Dutch preacher, playwright, poet, church historian, biographer and naval historian. A well-known writer in his own time, his works include a ''Life of Michiel de Ruy ...

. On the topic of

predestination Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...

, he engaged in controversy with the

Arminian Arminianism is a branch of Protestantism based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the ''Re ...

Anglican

Samuel Hoard Samuel Hoard (1599–1658) was an English clergyman and controversialist in the Arminian interest. He is credited with the first worked-out attack on Calvinistic doctrine by an English churchman. Life He was born in London in 1599, and became eit ...

. In an undated letter to his friend Samuel Ward, with whom he had served as a delegate to Dort, Davenant endorses the view (shared by Ward) that all baptized infants receive the remission of the guilt of

original sin Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (t ...

baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...

and that this constitutes their infant baptismal regeneration, justification, sanctification, and adoption. In his view, this infant baptismal remission, which involves the objective status of the infant apart from subjective operations of grace, will not suffice for justification, if the child does not later come to faith. Nonetheless, he goes on to argue that this poses no contradiction to the doctrine of the

perseverance of the saints Perseverance of the saints (also called preservation of the saints) is a Christian teaching that asserts that once a person is truly "born of God" or "regenerated" by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they will continue doing good works and bel ...

as articulated by Dort, since the "perseverance" intended there presupposes subjective grace.John Davenant
“The Epistle of Davenant.”
Retrieved 6 January 2011. Davenant's "Dissertation on the Death of Christ" was translated into English from Latin in 1831 by Josiah Allport and published as an appendix to his commentary on the Letter of Paul to the Colossians. The Commentary on Colossians was reprinted, without the "Dissertation," in 2005 by the Banner of Trust Trust (). The "Dissertation" was republished by Quinta Press in 2006 ().

Notes

References

*''Concise Dictionary of National Biography''

External links

The life, letters & writings of John Davenant D.D., 1572–1641, Lord Bishop of Salisbury (1897)
online text * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Davenant, John 1572 births 1641 deaths Bishops of Salisbury English Calvinist and Reformed theologians Participants in the Synod of Dort Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Presidents of Queens' College, Cambridge Writers from London 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians English male non-fiction writers Lady Margaret's Professors of Divinity 17th-century Church of England bishops 16th-century Anglican theologians 17th-century Anglican theologians