HOPKINS, SAMUEL American theologian, was born in Waterbury (Conn.) , on Sept. 17, 1721. He graduated at Yale college in 1741; studied divinity at Northampton (Mass.), with Jonathan Edwards; was licensed to preach in 1742, and in Dec. 1743 was ordained pastor of the church in the North Parish of Sheffield, or Housatonick (now Great Barrington, Mass.). There he laboured until 1769, for part of the time in intimate as sociation with his old teacher, Edwards, whose call to Stockbridge he had been instrumental in procuring. Opposition to his theo logical views caused his dismissal, and from April 1770 until his death on Dec. 20, 1803, he was the pastor of the First Church in Newport (R.I.), though he preached elsewhere while Newport was occupied by the British. Personally he was remarkable for force and energy of character and for the utter fearlessness with which he followed premises to their conclusions. Though he was originally a slave-holder, to him belongs the honour of having been the first among the Congregational ministers of New England to denounce slavery both by voice and pen.
Among his publications are a valuable Life and Character of Jonathan Edwards , and numerous pamphlets and ad dresses, including A Dialogue . . . showing it to be the Duty and Interest of the American States to emancipate all their African Slaves (1776), and A Discourse upon the Slave Trade (1793). His distinctive theological tenets are to be found in his important work, A System of Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended (1793 ), which has had an influence hard ly inferior to that exercised by the writings of Edwards himself. They may be summed up as follows : God so rules the universe as to produce its highest happiness, considered as a whole. Since God's sovereignty is absolute, sin must be, by divine permission, a means by which this happiness of the whole is secured, though that this is its consequence, renders it no less heinous in the sinner. Virtue consists in preference for the good of the whole to any private advantage ; hence the really virtuous man must willingly accept any disposition of himself that God may deem wise—a doctrine often called "willingness to be damned." All have natural power to choose the right, and are therefore responsible for their acts; but all men lack inclination to choose the right unless the existing "bias" of their wills is transformed by the power of God from self-seeking into an effective inclination towards virtue.