HOPKINS, SAMUEL: New England theologian; b. in Waterbury, Conn., Sept. 17, 1721; d. in New port, R. I., Dec. 20, 1803. He was Ministry graduated at Yale in 1741, and the at Great same year began his theological studies, Barrington. under the care and in the family of President Edwards, then of Northamp ton,, Mass. He was ordained pastor of the Con gregational Church in Great Barrington, Mass., Dec. 28, 1743. The church then had only five members, but 116 joined it during his pas torate. After a ministry of twenty-five years,

he was dismissed Jan. 18, 1769. His ministry was sometimes interrupted by the French and Indian wars, which compelled him to flee with his family to other towns for safety. He preached often to the Housatonic Indians in his neighborhood. He remained intimate with President Edwards, and was better acquainted than any other man with the peculiar views of Edwards. He also held frequent and fraternal intercourse with Joseph Bellamy (q.v.), of Bethlehem, Conn.

Hopkins was installed pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newport, R. I., Apr. 11, 1770,

and continued in this pastorate thirtyMinistry three years. As the French and Indian

at wars had interfered with his parochial Newport. success in Great Barrington, so the Opposition Revolutionary War interfered with it to Slavery. in Newport. The town was captured

by the British in 1776, and remained in their possession more than three years. During these years the church of Dr. Hopkins was impoverished, the church edifice was nearly ruined, and he himself was compelled to seek refuge in other towns. On returning to Newport in 1780 he resumed a work which had already exposed him to severe persecution. Newport had been a principal slave-mart of North America. As early as 1770 Hopkins began to preach against the slave system. He afterward published numerous essays against it in the newspapers of Newport, Providence, Boston, and Hartford. From 1780 onward he wrote elaborate letters on the subject to men of wealth and influence in this country, and to John Erskine, Granville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, and other opponents of slavery in Great Britain, AB early as 1773 he united with his friend Ezra Stiles, of Newport, in issuing a circular plea for aid in educating two colored men for an African mission. In 1776 he united with Dr. Stiles in a second circular for the same object. Some time after 1780 he formed a more comprehensive plan for colonizing American slaves, which was followed by visible results. Two liberated negroes, who in their youth had been affected by his colonizing scheme, retained for about forty years their desire to go as colonists and missionaries to their native land; and in Jan., 1826, they sailed from Boston to Liberia with sixteen other Africans, all formed into a church, of which these two aged men were deacons.

Dr. Hopkins was a very unattractive speaker, but was more successful as a writer. By his love of

investigation, his patient and unreCharacter mitting thought, the independence,

and strength, and comprehensiveness of Writings. his mind, by his honesty, humility,

and benevolence, his deferential study of the Bible, and his habit of communion with God, he was eminently fitted to be a theologian. His system was essentially Calvinistic, but was distinguished as "Hopkinsianism" (q.v.). He edited several of President Edwards' most important works, and published independently The Wisdom of God in the Permission of Sin (Boston, 1759); An Inquiry concerning the Promises of the Gospel (1765); An Inquiry into the Nature of True Holiness (Newport, 1773); A System. of Doctrines contained in

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Divine Revelation (2 vols., Boston, 1793); and other less important theological works. His political writings were chiefly anonymous. His noted Dia logue concerning the Slavery of the Africans, together with his Address to Slaroeholdem, was published in 1766. See New England Theology.

(Edwards A. Park†.) F. H. Foster.

Bibliography: A new ed. of the Works, with a Memoir, was published by E. A. Park Boston, 1852; the Memoir was issued separately, ib. 1854 (the best work on the subject). The Autobiography was published by Stephen West in Sketches of the Life of Samuel Hopkkins, Hartford, 1805. Consult: W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 428-35, New York, 1859; A. E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America, pp. 278-281, ib. 1894; W. Walker, American Church History Series, iii. 287-292 et passim, ib. 1894; idem, New England Leaders, pp. 313-361; ib. 1901; L. W. Bacon, The Congregationalists, pp. 137207, ib. 1904; F. H. Foster, Genetic Hist. of the New England Theology, chaps. vi.-vii., Chicago, 1907.