Universalism has said against one of the fathers of Hopkinsianism. Mr. Murray erred, in supposing his antagonist's want of amenity in manners to be an irascibility of temper. Amid all our commendation of Hopkins, we cannot say that he sacrificed to the Graces. His rugged work as a controversialist, did not make him a nice observer of conventional etiquette. Dr. West says, that he was never overbearing in an argument; *his style, however, made him appear so, at times, to strangers. He understood "human nature " far more thoroughly than “human life," and thus he often stirred up prejudices which a more "fashionable" man would have avoided. He was not made for smooth waters. Dr. Channing says, that "he wanted toleration toward those who rejected his views;" but that he was more intolerant than other Calvinistic divines, Channing did not suppose, and what Channing would call intolerance they would call a needful reverence for the truth. Dr. Ashbel Green says, that Hopkins "is certainly a man of much more candor, liberality, and catholicism than most of his disciples;" but his disciples have been as liberal and catholic as other Calvinists. A gentleman of literary distinction, who knew Hopkins well, and dissents from the Hopkinsian creed, has the magnanimity to write: "He seems to me, in looking back on that early day, to have been the most individual, identical man with whom I have ever been acquainted, or rather [whom] I have ever seen. He said what he thought, and with a clearness, a distinctness in perfect harmony with the occasion. I do believe that disinterested benevolence,' the underlying principle of his stern metaphysics and of his apparently totally impracticable theology, was as real and as operative with him, as is the opposite principle in the hearts and lives of other men.' SECT. XXXI. LETTER TO DR. STILES. In the rich Literary Diary which President Stiles kept at Yale College, he has inserted the following record, which vividly illustrates the character of his times: "New Haven, 1781. Received a letter from Rev. Mr. Hopkins, dated Newport, January 26; wherein he says, speaking of the state of religion there, Every thing is dark and discouraging here, with respect to the allimportant interest. The people in general are going from bad to worse, and I now see no way for my continuing here longer than till spring. Neither your people nor mine are disposed to attend public worship constantly, except a few individuals. There is but little encouragement to preach, where there is so little attention, and so very little concern about any thing invisible. I expected you, sir, would be willing to perform the part of a professor of divinity on the decease of Dr. Daggett, till I was told the contrary by Mr. Fitch. I wish that place may be well supplied. But where is the man to be *See p. 63 of this Memoir. t Works, vol. iv. p. 342. found? the man who will accept, and who will be accepted. If I knew of one who probably would be acceptable to the college, and might be willing to make a trial half a year or a year, he must not be mentioned, if he be a New Divinity man.' "Remark 1. Very lamentable is the state of religion at Newport, and particularly that they will not attend public worship. But, "2. One occasion of this negligence is brother Hopkins's New Divinity. He has preached his own congregation almost away, or into an indifference. He has fifty or sixty, or more, families of his own congregation in town, and might easily command a good assembly, if his preaching was as acceptable as his moral character. My congregation, gathered in town, are seventy or eighty families, and would gladly attend such preaching as Dr. Owen's, or Dr. Doddridge's, or preachers of far lower abilities, provided they were ejusdem farina with the first Puritan divines. "3. Although New Divinity preachers collect some large congregations in some parts, as Taunton, Middleboro', Abington, &c., yet their preaching is acceptable, not for the new tenets, but for its containing the good old doctrines of grace, on which the new gentlemen are very sound, and clear, and full. In other parts, where the neighboring ministers generally preach the old Calvinistic doctrines, the people begin to be tired with the incessant inculcation of the unintelligible and shocking new points; especially, that an unconverted man had better be killing his father and mother than praying for converting grace; that true repentance implies a willingness and desire to be damned for the glory of God; that we are to give God thanks that he has caused Adam to sin, and involve all his posterity in total depravity, that Judas betrayed and the Jews crucified Christ, &c., &c.; that the children of none but communicants are to be baptized, &c.; that the churches and ministers are so corrupt and Laodicean, and have so intermixed with the world, that the New Divinity churches and ministers cannot hold communion, but must and do recede and sequester themselves from them." . . . . "4. I do not perceive on whom Mr. Hopkins has his eye for a professor of divinity. But Mr. Fitch tells me, Mr. Hopkins spake of Mr. West, of Stockbridge, as a great scholar, a great divine, and excellently qualified for such an office; but he supposed the corporation would not choose him. He also mentioned Mr. Hart, of Preston, as a great divine. I rather think he supposed Mr. West would be acceptable to the scholars. But when it is said, he would be willing to preach in college a year on trial, I should rather think he meant some one else besides Mr. West or Mr. Hart." These remarks of Dr. Stiles suggest a few comments. 1. He manifests his usual fairness in confessing that the New School of divines were "VERY SOUND, AND CLEAR, AND FULL," on the "good old doctrines of grace." This is the testimony of one who had been intimate with the leader of that school. He was better acquainted with their principles than are the men who, in some parts of our country, accuse that same school of denying the "fundamental doctrines of the gospel." 2. He implies, what is well known from other sources, that the New Divinity men aimed to be more strict in Christian discipline than the Old. He evidently revered - how could he avoid doing so? the religious spirit of Hopkins, who was, at that time, the accredited chief of the New Divinity men. All who knew Hopkins acknowledged his personal excellence. 3. The two Hopkinsian doctrines, that men have natural power to do whatever they are justly required to do, and that all moral character consists in the free choices of men, are not considered by Dr. Stiles as worthy of mention, when compared with the other Hopkinsian principles, that the children of communicants only are to be baptized, and that a creature ought to sacrifice all his interests when the glory of the Creator demands the sacrifice. During the lifetime of Hopkins, he found some, but not many, unreasonable enough to gainsay those two axioms relating to man's power to do what is required of him, and to the active nature of all sin. 4. Dr. S. describes Hopkinsianism as unpopular, and therefore as fit to be condemned. Many Calvinists have done the same, and thus added force to the Arminian objection, that Calvinism is not attractive to the human heart, and is, therefore, false. 5. The fact that Hopkins did not interest the fifty or sixty farilies of his parish in the support of the gospel, is ascribed by Dr. Stiles to the New Divinity, as a main cause; and yet the seventy or eighty families of Dr. Stiles's parish did not even go so far as to ordain a minister, until ten years after he had left them. If, then, the low estate of the First Church was occasioned by the "strong meat" of Hopkinsianism, why was not the lower estate of the Second Church occasioned by the "sincere milk" of moderate Calvinism, which Dr. Stiles had imparted for the twenty previous years? The depressed condition of both the First and Second Church was owing less to either the New or Old Divinity, than to the revolutionary war,* 6. While Dr. Stiles refers to New Divinity as thinning the audience of Mr. Hopkins, he concedes, with his characteristic frankness, that other preachers of that same divinity collected "large congregations." It is notorious that they had some of the best congregations in New England. Does not this imply, that some other causes operated in keeping away the multitude from the choir-leader of the New Divinity. 7. Dr. Channing ascribes the unpopularity of Mr. Hopkins, as a preacher, to a combination of different causes. He says: "My recollections of Dr. Hopkins go back to my earliest years, [i. e., a short time after Dr. Stiles penned the above record.] As the Second Congregational Church was closed in my childhood, in consequence of Dr. Stiles's removal to New Haven, my father was accustomed to attend on the ministry of Dr. Hopkins. Perhaps he was the first minister I heard, but I heard him with no profit. His manner, which was singularly unattractive, could not win a child's attention; and the circumstances attending the service were repulsive. The church had been much injured by the British during the occupation of the town, and the congregation were too poor to repair it. It had a desolate look; and in winter the rattling of the windows made an impression which time has not worn out. It was literally as cold as a barn;' and some of the most painful sensations of my childhood were experienced in that comfortless building. As I grew up, I was accustomed to attend See Hon. William Ellery's Letter, in Dr. Holmes's Life of Stiles, pp. 223, 224. Hopkinsianism was repugnant, and so was moderate Calvinism, to many who had felt the influence of De Rochambeau and his army. j worship in our own church, where Dr. Patten was settled, so that for years I knew little of Dr. Hopkins. My first impressions were not very favorable. I think it probable, that his strong reprobation of the slave trade excited ill will in the place; and I can distinctly recollect, that the prevalence of terror in his preaching was a very common subject of remark, and gave rise to ludicrous stories among the boys."-"His [Dr. H.'s] preaching can only be understood by one who had heard him. His voice was most untunable. Some of the tones approached a cracked bell, more nearly than any thing to which I can compare it. He changed from a low to a high key, and the reverse, with no apparent reason. His manner was without animation. Ilis matter, as far as I can trust my memory, was not made acceptable by any adaptation to the taste of the hearer. He had exercised the severer faculties of his mind too much to give a fair chance to the imagination. He had no relish for poetry, and spoke of himself as finding no attraction in Milton or Shakspeare. If his style was clear and strong, he owed these qualities to his habits of thought, and not to any study of the best writers. We cannot wonder, then, that he was a very uninteresting preacher. He sometimes ascribed the unfruitfulness of his ministry to other causes, and seemed to see in it a judgment on himself. But a minister who has not the gift to win attention, should see no mystery in his failing to do good. Dr. Hopkins was a student, not preacher. His mind was habitually employed in investigation, and he never studied the art of communication. With an unharmonious voice, with no graces of manner or style, and with a disposition to bring forward abstract and unpalatable notions, is it wonderful that he did so little in the pulpit? 8. The account which Mr. Hopkins himself gives of his ministerial discouragements is an affecting exhibition of his rare virtues. The idea seems never to have entered his mind, that by concealing the limited success of his pulpit, he might preclude some objections to his theology. With what an honest and humble spirit, does the divine of nearly fourscore years confess : "My preaching has always appeared to me as poor, low, and miserable, compared with what it ought to be; and frequently a sense of my deficiencies in this has been very painful and discouraging; and I have felt often as if I must leave off, and never attempt any more; and commonly, if not always, a prospect of preaching, and when I have been entering upon it, has brought a peculiar burden on my mind. And many times, when I have been preaching, it has left a painful consciousness, that I have come unspeakably short of what ought to be. And I have never wondered that my preaching has been attended with so little apparent good effect, since it has been so deficient every way." + How suddenly is a critic disarmed, when he reads the narrative which this aged and broken-hearted penitent gives of his qualifications for the pulpit! "I have never," he says, "in the course of my life, since I first entertained a hope that I had been brought to the knowledge of the truth, given up my hope, and come to a settled conclusion that I had no grace; but my doubts have frequently rose very high. Many times my exercises have been such, as for a time to exclude all doubts. But I have been constantly conscious that I have always fallen unspeakably below what I ought to be, and what I Dr. Channing's Letter of February 14, 1840. Hopkins was an old man, as thus described. + Sketches, p. 88. * hoped I should be. My strongest religious exercises and highest enjoyments have taken place in my retirement and secret devotions; and in my public performances, praying and preaching have generally been very low; which I have sometimes suspected was an argument that my religion is not genuine. I know it is an argument against me, that I am very sinfully defective in my social and public religion! I have been frequently carried out in secret in views of divine truth, and exercises, even to an ecstasy, while tears have flowed abundantly, with groanings and desires truly unutterable. My religious emotions and exercises of soul in the view of the truths respecting God and the Saviour, the way of salvation, my own evil character, &c., have been unspeakably more lively and strong, than any emotions and exercises I have ever experienced, respecting any worldly, temporal objects. I have loved retirement, and have never been comfortable when deprived of it; and have taken more pleasure alone, than in any company; and have often chosen to ride alone, when on a journey, rather than in the best company. I have for a long course of years, even from my first entering on the work of the ministry, spent the last day of the week in retirement, and in fasting and prayer, unless interrupted by something extraordinary; and have found great advantage by it. This I have practised, not as a burden and task, but as a privilege. I have felt and known myself to be a low and shameful Christian, if I were one; and have generally reflected on myself, character, and conduct, as a Christian and minister of the gospel, with a painful shame and selfcondemnation, of which none can have conception but those who have felt the same; knowing that in many things I offend, and in every thing have come unspeakably short of what I ought to do and be, considering my advantages, mercies, and obligations. My life and character, and all my exercises, are stained with such an awful degree of moral depravity and pollution, that I feel myself infinitely far from any righteousness or moral goodness that can recommend me to the favor of God; and if I am dealt with according to my moral character and desert, I must be cast off by God, and made miserable forever. I have no refuge but the righteousness, the infinite merit and worthiness of Christ. In him I hope; to him I come for pardon, justification, and redemption from all iniquity, while I am willing to be considered as infinitely unworthy, and ill-deserving, even the greatest sinner that is, or ever was on earth; and know that if I am saved, it will be wholly owing to mere, infinite, sovereign grace; to eternal, electing love; for which I cannot give or conceive any reason, but that which was given by the Son of God Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.' I am truly ashamed of myself, that I have lived so long, and have made so little advances in mental [probably a misprint for moral and'] religious attainments; and am, at the same time, conscious that I see but very little of my shameful depravity which has actually taken place, and now exists, and as it is viewed by the omniscient Saviour; and, therefore, my confessions, shame and humiliation in his sight are inconsiderable and nothing, compared with my real shameful depravity and odiousness. And that petition well becomes me, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!'"+ · * If Mr. Hopkins had learned to express in public the feelings which he poured out in private, he would have been one of the most eloquent of preachers. But he was often curbed and held down in presence of an auditory. He begins a letter on the first of January, 1771, in a style not very common for a New Year's Day: "I can in some measure sympathize with you in your dejecting sense of your own pollution, vileness, and guilt; though this brings a dreadful burden on me often, in which you cannot fully share. You can secrete yourself, and withdraw from society, when this view of yourself renders you unfit for company, and fills you with apprehensions that you shall do mischief to all you converse with. But I am obliged to lead in public worship, and engage in the most solemn and awful business of speaking in God's name, and dealing with immortals about their eternal concerns, whatever views I have of myself; however dejected in my own mind, and desirous to be hid in a corner, out of all danger of spreading mischief-out of the way, and even the thoughts of all." + Sketches, pp. 85-88. |