in society had always been such that she had everything to lose and nothing to gain by crime. Her mental characteristics and peculiarities might readily have developed into insanity under the uncongenial influences of her married life and the excitement accompanying the experience of the bitter feelings of the community towards a father whom she loved passionately and whose views she probably shared.1

1 Since making these remarks an eminent lawyer, and a well-known physician who has occupied successfully for the last forty years prominent positions in institutions for the treatment of the insane, have each stated to me, after examining the evidence carefully, that it is their opinion that, if Mrs. Spooner were to be put on trial to-day and defended on the ground of unsoundness of mind, she would be discharged. I am glad, also, to be able to add that the same views have been expressed to me since the meeting of the society by one of the most distinguished students of American history. I will not undertake to reproduce at length here the opinions of these gentlemen, but may return to the consideration of the whole subject at some future time and treat it more elaborately than would be proper in the Proceedings of this society.

HOPKINSIANISM.

BY ANDREW P. PEABODY.

SAMUEL HOPKINS was born at Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1721, graduated at Yale College in 1741, was settled as a minister at Great Barrington, then the Second Parish of Sheffield, Massachusetts, in 1743, became minister of the First Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1770, and died at Newport in 1803. He was a profound and original thinker, and while never attractive as a preacher, he exercised, through the press, an extensive and by no means short-lived influence on New England theology. His system, while at certain points it seemed Calvinism intensified, was, nevertheless, a revolt against some of the dogmas deemed fundamental by the Genevan reformer. Dr. Hopkins denied the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, and of Christ's righteousness to the redeemed; yet maintained that Adam's posterity inherited from him a sinful and ruined nature, being born sinners, and that Christ's righteousness is the meritorious cause by means of which alone a portion of the human race are saved from the everlasting punishment which all, even infants, deserve for their sinful nature, and which also is justly due as the penalty for any single sinful act or volition which, as an offence against the Infinite Being, itself becomes infinite. Selfishness, according to him, is the essence of all sin, and virtue consists in disinterested benevolence, embracing every being in the universe, God and all his creatures, and self only as an infinitesimal part of the universe. Thus so far is self-love from being the measure of brotherly love,

that love for the remotest being in the universe is the normal measure of self-love. Man, according to the same system, is a free agent, that is, can do as he wills, but is morally incapable of aught but evil before conversion, has a depraved will, can do nothing toward his own conversion, sins in his every endeavor to improve his moral condition, and is entirely dependent on the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit for his regeneration.

The supreme purpose of God in the creation of this world and of man, according to Dr. Hopkins, was the manifestation of his own glory, and that glory can be manifested only by doing what he will with his own. By his very nature he is above all law, and the laws which he enacts for his creatures have no claim on his observance. With him might creates right. From the human race, sinners by the depraved nature inherited from Adam, and therefore meriting eternal misery, he, in a past eternity, by his own arbitrary decrec, elected a certain number who should be rescued from perdition, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and made partakers of heavenly happiness. They were elected, not because of any foresight of their faith or good works; but, being elected, they are endowed by the irresistible grace of God with the traits of character that make them. fit for heaven. An essential pre-requisite to regeneration is the hearty approval of and assent to the Divine sovereignty in the arbitrary election of those that are to be saved, even to the extent of a willingness to be among those eternally lost, if the glory of God so require. He who is not willing to be damned is not in a salvable condition.

It will be readily seen how intimately connected are the two points on which Mr. Sherman assails Dr. Hopkins's system. Self-love must of necessity be extinguished, or reduced to an infinitesimal fragment of itself, before the soul can be willing to suffer everlasting torment.

Dr. Hopkins's earliest publication that drew the attention of theologians to his peculiar views was in 1759, namely,

three sermons entitled, "Sin, through Divine Interposition, an Advantage to the Universe, and yet no Excuse for Sin or Encouragement in it." Most of his many subsequent publications1 were in maintenance of the ground then taken, against antagonists of the older Calvinistic school. Among these was "An Inquiry into the Nature of true Holiness," published in 1773, which is the special subject of Mr. Sherman's strictures. He had many disciples, and while among the most modest of men, without so intending, he gave his name to a sect.

For more than half a century Hopkinsianism, not only in fact, but in name, held a prominent place in New England theology. Many of the most eminent divines, for a period extending through the first quarter of the present century, were styled Hopkinsians. In Connecticut this type of dogmatic belief found special favor and prevalence, and led to several cases of local dissension and controversy, some of which had a more than local interest, and have left their record in pamphlets that had in their time an extensive circulation. In Windham County, perhaps in other counties, it was the occasion of a rupture in the Association of ministers, a minority seceding from their Hopkinsian brethren, and forming a separate organization.

The leading champion of this system was Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, Massachusetts, who was unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, among his contemporaries, in conversance with the whole range of polemic theology, in dialectic skill, in keenness and subtilty as a controversalist, and in close logical consistency in admitting the most startling and repulsive inferences that could be legitimately drawn from his premises. Dying in 1840, at the age of ninety-five, he considered himself as almost the last depository of the

1 But not all. He was a pioneer in the anti-slavery cause, and one of the earliest, so far as I know the very earliest American publication in behalf of emancipation was "A Dialogue, showing it to be the Duty and Interest of the American States to emancipate all their African Slaves," published by Dr. Hopkins, in 1776.

true faith. At his special request, his funeral sermon was prepared and read for his approval, by Rev. Thomas Williams, who, after paying this tribute to his venerable friend, regarded himself as the sole surviving Hopkinsian. In his late old age he repeatedly visited me, always with a volume of Dr. Emmons's sermons in his hand, and interspersing his portion of our conversation with extracts from the volume. He was the only person from whom I ever heard in express words the defence of the doctrine of infant damnation. But this was his favorite theme. He had braced himself up to regard it with entire complacency, and to consider it as a peculiarly resplendent manifestation of what he called the Divine glory, which, he said, would be obscured by the admission to heaven of unconverted members of a sinful race, though themselves guiltless of actual transgression.

Hopkinsianism is to be regarded as an important stage of progress from the earlier Calvinism to the new theology of Andover and New Haven. In denying the dogmas of imputed sin and imputed righteousness, and in affirming human freedom as a metaphysical certainty, it undermined the theology on which previous generations had reposed, and in its intense stress on inevitable, but abhorrent corollaries from other dogmas of that system which had not been strongly emphasized before, it led to a revision of the entire system. It is therefore to be accounted as holding a foremost place among the liberalizing influences, which have so largely modified the (so-called) orthodoxy of New England, and of those Western regions which have been colonized chiefly from New England.

Roger Sherman is so closely identified with the history of the country as to need no prolonged biographical notice. He was on the Committee to draft the Declaration of Independence of which he was a signer, and afterwards served in the General Congress on several of the most important committees. He was one of the framers of the Articles of the