Samuel Hopkins

Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803) was an American Congregationalist minister at Newport, Rhode Island. A controversial minister, he is best known for the theological scheme that bears his name, Hopkinsianism, which became more widely known as ‘the New Divinity’, or ‘New Light’ theology.  At the heart of Hopkins’s theology (a variant form of Calvinism) was the concept known as ‘disinterested benevolence’, which Frances Ryland mentions in the above entry (Jane Attwater discussed it as well in her diary), a concept that did not sit well with all Calvinists. This view of benevolence would later form the basis for the theology of Nathaniel Taylor at Yale Divinity School in the 1820s, what became known as ‘New Haven Theology’ and an important factor in the Second Great Awakening