Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803)

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Samuel Hopkins (September 17, 1721-December 20, 1803) was an American Congregationalist clergyman of the late colonial era and early United States. He was named after his uncle, Samuel Hopkins (1693-1755), a minister in the church in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and brother-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, who had a special interest in ministry to native Americans.

Samuel Hopkins (the younger) was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and studied theology with Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, having graduated from Yale College in 1741. Hopkins received a Doctor of Divinity from Yale in 1802. He ministered in Housatonic, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island.

He created the theological scheme that bears his name, known as "Hopkinsianism" or "The New Divinity". This religious system, also sometimes called Hopkinsism, is a form of Calvinism which its adherents called "consistent Calvinism." It involved a belief that sincerity required believers to be willing to be damned for the glory of God and denied that, at birth, people are born with an inherited sinfulness. Instead, it taught that all people are sinners only because of the sins which they commit after they are born. The Hopkinsian view, sometimes called the "New Divinity", evolved into a distinct theology under Nathaniel W. Taylor, a later instructor of theology at Yale Divinity School, known as the "New Haven Theology".

An early opponent to the institution of slavery, he published a pamphlet entitled, "A Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans," which was addressed "To the Honorable Members of the Continental Congress, Representatives of the Thirteen United American Colonies."

[edit] SOURCES

Patten, William, Reminiscences of the late Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D.D., of Newport, R.I. Illustrated in His Character and Doctrines, Providence, R.I., 1843.