Samuel Hopkins

Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803) was an American Congregationalist minister at Newport, Rhode Island. A controversial minister, he is best known for the theological scheme that bears his name, Hopkinsianism, which became more widely known as ‘the New Divinity’, or ‘New Light’ theology.  At the heart of Hopkins’s theology (a variant form of Calvinism) was the concept known as ‘disinterested benevolence’, which Frances Ryland mentions in the above entry (Jane Attwater discussed it as well in her diary), a concept that did not sit well with all Calvinists. This view of benevolence would later form the basis for the theology of Nathaniel Taylor at Yale Divinity School in the 1820s, what became known as ‘New Haven Theology’ and an important factor in the Second Great Awakening. His most important work on theology was his System of Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended (1793).

After Abraham Booth’s publication of Glad Tidings to Perishing Sinners (London, 1796), its reception in America produced a sharp response by those who adhered to the New Divinity, especially Hopkins. Hopkins was severely attacked by Booth in his book, enough so that Hopkins felt compelled to defend himself in a long manuscript which he sent to John Ryland, Jr., in England and that circulated among many of the Particular Baptists, such as Ryland, Fuller, and J. W. Morris. Hopkins never published his manuscript. An account of the event can be found in the Memoir of Hopkins in The Works of Samuel Hopkins (3 vols) (Boston, 1852), vol. 1, pp. 222-23. Booth believed that Fuller, Ryland, and others were too attached to Hopkins and Edwards, and that by “importing their metaphysical refinements, there would be some danger of relaxing that muscular system of theology to which he himself was so ardently attached.” “In the progress of his inquiry, Mr. Booth did not fail to animadvert pretty severely on some of the American writers; whom he mentioned, rather in terms of contempt; and the sentiments of Dr. Hopkins in particular, on the subject of regeneration and justification, he considered as ‘pernicious’ and tending to ‘corrupt the Gospel.’ His pamphlet soon crossed the Atlantic, where it was attentively examined by Dr. Hopkins, who transmitted to a friend on this side the water a complete refutation of several of Mr. Booth’s positions, accompanied with some pointed strictures on the temper of his performance, and the inconclusive nature of his reasonings. The respect entertained for Mr. Booth, did not permit the printing of this valuable manuscript, and it obtained only a private circulation; for, whatever difference of opinion might exist on some speculative points, all parties were agreed in paying homage to his [Mr. B.’s] character. Mr. Fuller apologized to Dr. Hopkins for Mr. Booth’s manner of writing, and his seeming contempt for contemporary authors, in a letter dated March 17, 1798; while he, at the same time, expressed his own opinion of the manuscript in question. ‘I sincerely thank you,’ says he, [Mr. Fuller to Dr. Hopkins,] ‘for your remarks on Mr. Booth’s performance; which every person of judgment who has seen them, within my knowledge, considers as a decisive refutation.’” [The writer of Hopkin's Memoir has taken this from Morris’s Memoir of Fuller, chapter xi.]