John Davenant
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John Davenant (London, 20 May 1572- Salisbury, 20 April 1641) was an English academic and bishop of Salisbury from 1621.
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[edit] Life
He was a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge from 1597, and its President from 1614 to 1621. He was a representative for the Church of England at the Synod of Dort in 1618, along with Samuel Ward, Joseph Hall and George Carleton.
He later came into conflict with William Laud, who regarded him as a suspect Calvinist.
[edit] Views
At Dort there were divisions in the Anglican camp:
“ | On the one hand Davenant, Ward and Martinius believed that Christ died for all particular men; Carleton, Goad, and Balcanquhall himself believed that Christ died only for the elect, who consisted of all sorts of men.[1] | ” |
A compromise pursued went in Davenant's direction. It has been said:
“ | Davenant attempted to find a middle road between outright Arminianism and the supralapsarianism which some in England favored. He found in the theology of Saumer such a road and defended the Amyrauldian views of hypothetical universalism, a general atonement in the sense of intention as well as sufficiency, a common blessing of the cross, and a conditional salvation. All these views stood in close connection with the theology of the well-meant offer of salvation to all.[2] | ” |
Davenant sympathised with the aims of John Dury, as far as unifying Protestantism went, and wrote in his favour, a piece subsequently quoted by Gerard Brandt[3].
On the topic of predestination, he engaged in controversy with the Arminian Anglican Samuel Hoard.
[edit] References
- Concise Dictionary of National Biography
[edit] Notes
- ^ W. B. Patterson, King James I and VI and the Reunion of Christendom, p. 271.
- ^ Davenant and the Westminster Assembly, PDF
- ^ PDF, p. 7.