On the Death of Christ and Other Atonement Writings

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“John Davenant’s classic treatise on the extent of the atonement has long lingered in a twilight zone of semi-availability for most readers: a dated translation in archaic type face, appended to a two-volume commentary. Only the most motivated students would ever finish this reading, no matter how crucial it may prove to be for their theological interests. Lynch offers us now an edition that sets a clean, smooth translation in the midst of clear references and helps. An essential tool for pondering the atonement as Christ’s universal remedy for fallen human nature, while recognizing the ordained limits of its application”

– FRED SANDERS
Torrey Honors College, Biola University
John Davenant’s On the Death of Christ remains the most significant and comprehensive example of English hypothetical universalism. Coming on the heels of the Synod of Dordt, Davenant’s Death of Christ is a scholastic treatise dealing with the question of the extent of Christ’s atonement-for whom did Christ die? Avoiding both the Scylla of Arminianism and Charybdis of certain strands of Reformed theology, Davenant employs Scripture, reason, and testimonies from ecclesiastical history in defense of the so-called Lombardian formula: Christ died for all people sufficiently; efficaciously for the elect alone.

John Davenant’s On the Death of Christ, a classic of English Reformed thought on the atonement, is now available in a new translation by Dr. Michael Lynch–the first in modern English. This book also features two shorter letters which Davenant wrote on this topic to both the French Reformed churches and to Herman Hildebrand.

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