The GOSPEL TRUTH

A GENETIC HISTORY OF THE

NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY

By

FRANK HUGH FOSTER

1907

 CHAPTER VI:

Samuel Hopkins

It was fortunate for the new theology of New England that so rich a nature, with so warm a heart and so intensely practical interests as Bellamy had, stood at its fountainhead to direct its course. The other colaborer with Edwards, Hopkins, was naturally of a more prosaic and exclusively intellectual turn; but he too was a pastor, and was thus made constantly solicitous for the practical usefulness of every theological theory. He was, perhaps, not so large a nature as Bellamy, but he was violently uprooted from his retirement in the depths of the western wilderness and transplanted to one of the principal seaports of the country, and here, amid the opportunities and under the incitements of a busier life, be became involved in larger attempts, and performed a larger service, than fell to Bellamy's lot. His theological service was larger, for he gathered his theology into the first New England "system;" but he was also a reformer, laboring against intemperance, slavery, secret societies, etc., gave the impulse which finally brought into existence the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and engaged in large miscellaneous literary labors, becoming, in particular, the editor of Edwards' literary remains. It is as a portion of a widely extended activity that we are to view those labors which fall under our present examination.

Hopkins' system of theology was a growth in his own mind, and was formed by prolonged study, and in constant contact with other minds. It was presented in many partial views in a series of controversial writings beginning with the very unpopular tract, Sin through the Divine Interposition an Advantage to the Universe (1759). It was finally gathered up in one full presentation in his System of Doctrines (1793). But meantime there had been a long and varied theological history, in which many different minds had been engaged, from some of whom Hopkins took much. The full understanding of his work therefore requires that it shall be divided, and, that after its earlier portions have been considered, and the foundations which he laid have been traced, attention shall be turned to the controversies going on about him and to the work of other laborers. Only thus shall we be able to understand the System when it comes.

The title of the first tract, already mentioned, was "so shocking to many that they would read no further." Such is Hopkins' own account. But it was a serious and reverent handling of the great theme which Bellamy had discussed but a little before--the permission of sin. Hopkins' first proposition is that sin is the occasion of great good. The case of Joseph, of Pharaoh, and of the Savior are cited, very much as Bellamy had cited them. Hopkins also declares under this head that God could have made intelligent creatures and kept them from sin without destroying their free agency. The second proposition is that the result of sin in accomplishing good is no excuse for it. The argument is chiefly biblical, consisting of examples which illustrate the vileness of sin, thus bringing to the heart and conscience of the reader the principles to which heart and conscience must ever respond. Sin is not the occasion of good because of any tendency to good in itself.

Bellamy had uncompromisingly declared, on the basis of the Leibnitzian optimism, that sin was the necessary means of the greatest good. Hopkins was also an optimist, and may have shared Bellamy's view. But there are two distinct interpretations of optimism possible--one that there can be no world better than the present, and the other that there can be none so good. Bellamy takes the latter position; but Hopkins may have taken the former. Though he says, "God's greatest and most glorious work is to bring good out of evil . . . to make sin in general, which is the greatest evil, the means of the greatest good," he is elsewhere cautious to a degree that implies some hesitation from fully following Bellamy. He says: "Christ will make sin the occasion of so much good, that the world shall be at least as good a world as if sin had never been introduced." His last word upon the theme is the supposition: "If God saw that sin's entering into the world would be the best means of answering the greatest and best ends . . . would be the occasion of the greatest good . . . a means of the world's becoming better, more excellent and glorious than otherwise it would be," etc. But he never introduces the thought that the revelation of God could not be perfected without sin, or any other position that must involve Bellamy's radical affirmation.

Hopkins' next work was his Inquiry concerning the Promises of the Gospel (1765), written in reply to two sermons of Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, pastor of the West Church in Boston, which were entitled, Striving to Enter in at the Strait Gate . . . and the Connection of Salvation Therewith (1761). Mayhew was entering a protest against certain applications of that same doctrine of inability, inherent in the ancient Calvinism, against which New England theology was about to make equal protest. He seems to have come already upon the ground of Edwards so far as to teach that the character of God was comprised in his love, and to draw the consequences that later gave the New England doctrine of the atonement. He had in mind certain extreme statements of the doctrine of prevenient grace, which led men to "deny there is any sort of connection between the most earnest endeavors of sinners and their obtaining eternal life." He was writing of the "unregenerate," but it is not quite certain that he did not mean by that term the "unsanctified." His terms are a little nebulous. Hopkins understood him to mean those who have not received the new heart by the special operation of the Holy Spirit. Whatever he meant at this point, so much is clear, that he taught that one who is "at least a speculative believer in the gospel," and has "some sense of his sin, guilt, and misery," has "his heart engaged in this matter as a thing of the last importance to him," earnestly prays, strives against sin, and intends to persevere "not for a month, a year, or any definite, given time, but as long as it shall please God to continue him in the world," may "strive to attain holiness and eternal life," and that, "if they strive in the manner they may and ought to do . . . God will certainly afford them all the influences of his Spirit and grace which are necessary to that end." The impression which the book makes as a whole is that, in resisting certain evil tendencies of the times, Mayhew had unconsciously gone over into substantial Pelagianism, ascribing the gift of converting grace to the divine response to efforts of the sinner.

Mayhew accordingly favors the use of "means" by the unregenerate, and ascribes to them some degree of acceptableness before God for such use. He does not exhort them to enter in at the strait gate, but to strive to enter, and the exhortation seems to Hopkins to have the force of urging them to strive in such a way as not to enter in actually. Hopkins had had bitter experiences of the effect of such exhortations in suppressing the Christian life in his own personal history. The book before us was written out of an inner necessity of the writer's mind. It was the first, but not the last, effort to strip such opinions of all their disguises and reveal them in themselves and in their baleful effects upon individual piety and the prosperity of the churches.

The new theory of virtue might have given Hopkins a means of complete logical refutation of Mayhew's views. If there is such a thing as a separate virtue, a single act of the will, which, without regard to the great end for which man is living, has a virtue in itself as an individual act, then there may be a prayer pleasing to God which yet falls short of being a full surrender of all the powers of the man to his service. But the Edwardean theory insisted first upon the exercise of "love to being in general," or that all things must be done from the supreme motive of love to God, and thus excluded every form of service of God which did not involve this. Such was Hopkins' position, and he, no doubt, saw clearly the inconsistency of Mayhew's teachings with this fundamental idea. But it is remarkable that he does not conduct the argument upon this basis. To have done so would have been to prejudice his case before a public which knew little as yet about the theory of virtue, which was, indeed, published the same year with Hopkins' tract under his editorial supervision (1765).

The question in dispute between Mayhew and Hopkins turned upon the doctrine of total depravity. Mayhew thought that the unregenerate might have such desires and strivings after holiness as were pleasing to God, though they were still unregenerate. Hopkins declared that if they had such acceptable strivings, they were regenerate; and if they were unregenerate, they did not have them. "All must see, I think, by this time," says Hopkins, "that in order to understand and settle the question before us, it must be first determined what can be justly predicated of the doings of unregenerate sinners, and that a just solution of this will put an end to the dispute." To the resolution of this issue Hopkins now addresses himself.

The expression "desiring salvation," if it means anything which it should mean, must, according to Hopkins, involve the choice of salvation; and this signification, he thinks, is contained in many expressions of Dr. Mayhew's. Now, it will not be difficult to prove that all who come with such a desire will obtain salvation, for all the promises of the gospel are made to them. The question is simply whether the unregenerate have any such desires. This the Scriptures deny in such passages as this: "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me, draw him." This drawing is regeneration, before which there is no true "coming." Says Hopkins:

There must, therefore, be a distinction kept up between regeneration, which is the work of God in giving a new heart, and in which men are perfectly passive, and active conversion, in which men, being regenerated, turn from sin to God in the exercise of repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, and in consequence of which they are pardoned and received to favor and a title to eternal life, and have the gift of the spirit to dwell with them forever, as an abiding principle of life and holiness. All this, with every benefit which men receive by Christ, is promised to those who believe or heartily embrace the gospel, and not to regeneration; for to this, considered as antecedent to all action, and only as the foundation of right exercise, no promise is made.

Neither are those influences by which men are regenerated in this sense meant by giving or receiving the Spirit, as the Spirit of promise, by which believers, and they only, are sealed to the day of redemption. But men receive the Spirit, in this sense, as a Spirit of adoption, by which all God's children are led by faith, or a hearty receiving Christ with all his benefits. (See John 1:12. Gal. 3:14, 26. Eph. 1:13.) They who will not make and understand this distinction, must think and talk in some measure unintelligibly on this point. This change, therefore, called regeneration, by which a new heart is given, as the foundation of all true discerning of the things of God's moral kingdom, and of all right exercises of heart; this change, I say, wrought by the Spirit of God, immediately and instantaneously, and altogether imperceptibly to the person who is the subject of it, it being impossible that he should know what God has done for him but by a consciousness of his own views and exercises, which are the fruit and consequence if the divine operation--these views and exercises of the regenerate, in which they turn from sin to God, or embrace the gospel, are often in Scripture spoken of as included in that change which is called a being born again; as all the change which is perceptible, and in which man is active, consists in this. And this is sometimes called, by divines, active conversion, to distinguish it from regeneration, or that change in which men are passive.

Hopkins here has in view the subjective motive leading to the action of the will. "Things that exist in the view of the mind," says Edwards, "have their strength, tendency, or advantage to move or excite the will from many things pertaining to the nature and circumstances of the thing viewed, the nature and circumstances of the mind that views, and the degree and manner of its view." To give this subjective condition, in the critical matter of regeneration, is the act of God, and before it the will never acts in accordance with the law of God. Yet this philosophical argument is never introduced by Hopkins, who no more quotes the Freedom of the Will than he does the Nature of Virtue, but advances other arguments more readily accepted by his audience. For example, he says: "That there are no promises of regenerating grace made to the exercises and doings of the unregenerate may be argued from passages of the Holy Scriptures;" and then proceeds to quote the requirements of the Scripture to repent and believe, and not to do anything short of this. He might have said: "This theory of regeneration puts it in the act of man, whereas it is the sovereign act of God." But he does not use this argument; he proceeds with his quotations. "To be carnally minded is death . . . All unregenerate persons are according to this in a state of condemnation and death and are in the way to eternal destruction." And he says, again: "That there are no promises of salvation made to the exercises and doings of the unregenerate will be evident if it be considered that such do, with their whole hearts, oppose the way of salvation by Christ and reject the salvation offered them."

Now, that exercises of enmity against Christ, and opposition to the gospel, and the salvation therein revealed and offered, or those which are consistent with this, are made the condition of a title to, and interest in, this salvation, so as that all the promises of the gospel are made to such exercises and acts, I presume none will believe.

If salvation is offered to all who heartily desire it, really choose and accept of it, and so truely ask for it, it is offered on terms low enough, as low as any can reasonably desire; yea, on the lowest conceivable or even possible terms. But no unregenerate person comes up to these terms. Therefore, salvation is not offered or promised to any doings of the unregenerate.

But, now, if the unregenerate are not accepted of God and blessed in their prayers and in the use of the other "means of grace," so called, what is the proper office of the Word in preaching, of the services of the sanctuary, of the reading of the Bible, of prayer, etc.? In reply, Hopkins emphasizes truth as "the grand medium of grace and salvation, and, strictly speaking, the sole medium." The whole object of the use of these means by Christians is to make the truth come home with greater power to men's hearts. And unconverted men are themselves also to use these means; that is, they are to seek every help in gaining a larger knowledge of the things relating to God's moral government and kingdom.

But if regeneration is, after all, God's work, what will be the benefit of this? Hopkins' answer is that the degree of knowledge thereby gained, while not a discernment of the true beauty of divine things, is the necessary condition of such a discernment.

This [true discernment] is a kind of knowledge which is peculiar to the regenerate, the foundation of which is laid in their having a new heart. The former is necessary in order to the latter, as it is supposed and implied in it; for there can be no discerning of the beauty of those objects of which the mind has no speculative idea.

But, still further, what is the true condition of the unregenerate under the use of these means? Are they the better or the worse for them? Hopkins answers, in entire consistence with the positions he has taken previously, that there is no true holiness in such use of means, but that, on the contrary, if the sinner continues to reject the gospel, he does not grow

better, but rather grows worse, by all the instruction and knowledge he gets in the use of means. And awakened, convicted sinners, with whom most means are used, and who are most attentive to the concerns of their souls, and most in earnest in the use of means, are commonly, if not always. really more guilty and odious in God's sight, than they who are secure and at ease in their sins. Their greater sinfulness does not, indeed, consist in their concern about themselves, in a sense of the sad, dangerous state they are in, and in their earnestly desiring deliverance and safety, or in the pains they take in order hereto; but in their continuing to hate God and his law, and to oppose and reject the Savior; even under all their concern, exercises, and endeavors, and with all the light and conviction they have.

But if all these efforts and all the use of means only make the sinner worse and worse, what is he to do? Shall he continue to use these ineffective means? Yes, says Hopkins, they are necessary to salvation, inasmuch as their absence is a fatal bar in the way of salvation.

God can, doubtless, as easily change the heart of the most ignorant, deluded Mahometan, or heathen, yea, the most blind, stupid Hottentot in the world, as that of the most awakened, enlightened sinner under the gospel. But if he should do so by the regenerating influences of his Spirit, there could be no right and proper exercises of Christian virtue and holiness; because such a one is without any right speculative knowledge of those truths, in the view of which alone Christian holiness is exercised. And giving a new heart, or a right taste and temper of mind, would not remove this darkness. This only prepares the mind to discern and relish the beauty and sweetness of divine things, when set before it in the use of means, but does not give any new speculative ideas or knowledge. Therefore, we have no reason to think God ever does so.

Hopkins' hopes for the heathen were not greater than Luther's, though the rational ground of his despair was not precisely the same.

To sum up, then, the substance of this treatise in a few words: Hopkins taught that the sinner is totally wicked; is under immediate obligations to repent; and nothing short of this is acceptable before God. He is bound to use the means of enlightenment, but in a holy manner, repenting of his sins as fast as he discovers them, casting himself wholly upon God, and choosing his service. Every promise is made to him under such circumstances, and nothing less can be or will be accepted by God. But if he refuse to give God his heart, all that he does is wicked, and the more he strives to put something else in the place of this simple, easy, and single duty, the more wicked he is. Such is the meaning of Hopkins; and the positions he thus laid down became at once and remained commonplaces in the New England school.

The men who opposed Hopkins so violently in this "new doctrine" claimed to be good Calvinists. It is therefore interesting to ask what were the actual relations of Hopkins' teaching to Calvinism, and especially to the Westminster Confession. The answer is brief. Hopkins was simply reaffirming the Westminster doctrine, in almost the very words of the Confession. We read:

Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith, nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word, nor to a right end, the glory of God; they are therefore sinful and cannot please God or make a man meet to receive grace from God. And yet their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.

This contest was the first shock of the battle of the new divinity with conservative Calvinism. It is natural at the present time to suppose that Edwards' works were recognized, when they first appeared, as possessing the importance which was later ascribed to them, and that his contemporaries had the same respect for him which posterity has felt. But such was not the case. The controversies into which Hopkins fell illustrate the prevalent condition of theological thinking, and thus throw very important light upon the times; but they were also essential steps in the contest which had to be waged in behalf of the new opinions before these could boast of the general acceptance which they finally received, and thus are indispensable topics in a genetic history of New England theology. Into their details it will therefore be necessary to go.

In 1767 Rev. Jedidiah Mills, of Ripton, Conn., wrote an Inquiry concerning the State of the Unregenerate under the Gospel, etc. This essay was particularly called out by the tenth section of Hopkins' tract against Mayhew, in which he dealt with the use of means and the condition of the unregenerate while using them. Mr. Mills did not approve of the position that the unregenerate, under conviction of sin in consequence of the application to them of the means of grace, are more sinful than they would be in a state of indifference and neglect of the means. This seemed to him an extreme against which he wished to protest.

His own starting-point it is somewhat difficult to determine, for he does not seem to have been a clear and incisive thinker. He sometimes describes the "unregenerate" man in a way which applies only to the regenerate. In such passages "unregenerate" would almost seem equivalent to "unsanctified." He implies that it is the duty of the "unregenerate, as a means among others, to pray for regenerating grace." He speaks of them, though unregenerate, as "less wicked, and, in the true sense of Scripture, in a state brought nearer to the kingdom of God" when awakened and convicted. He does not intend by this to abandon the Calvinistic system in favor of the Pelagian, although he approaches the latter; he is deeply interested in one main thing--in avoiding discouraging impressions as to the outcome of "using the means," in order that the unregenerate may not be led to neglect them.

However vague, rambling, and weak Hopkins felt the book to be, as it was in no small degree, he saw in it an epitome of the objections with which his work was being met, and proceeded to answer it at length. It is often more difficult to answer a vague and weak man than one strong and exact. With the thoroughness of Edwards himself, he set out to demolish the adversary and all he represented. It will obviously be unnecessary to follow the controversy into all its ramifications, for we are concerned here only with getting before us the contributions that came from it to the growing system of New England thought. But the main positions of Hopkins we must note, and they were these:

After remarking that Mr. Mills had "carefully kept the character which I give of the unregenerate sinner under true awakenings and convictions of conscience out of view," and had "done it through his whole performance," Hopkins redefines his position in the following paragraph:

The unregenerate sinner, who is under genuine and thorough awakenings and convictions of conscience respecting his own state and circumstances and the truths of the gospel, particularly respecting this truth, that salvation is freely offered to him through a Mediator, which he is obliged by the strongest ties of duty and interest immediately to accept and embrace, being at the same time wholly without any excuse for his neglect in not embracing it, and for the opposition of his heart to Christ, of which he is conscious, and who yet continues, under all this light, and contrary to the plain dictates and pressing, painful convictions of his own conscience, obstinately to oppose and reject Jesus Christ; such a one is, on the account of this his impenitence and obstinacy under this clear light and conviction of conscience, more guilty, vile, and odious in God's sight than he was before he had this light and conviction and was in a state of security and ignorance, whatever alteration or reformation has taken place in him in other respects.

He then goes into an elaborate discussion of "the true state and character of the unregenerate sinner under awakenings and convictions," in which he maintains that he is "an enemy to God;" and that, "however distressed and anxious he is about his case . . . he is as real and as great an enemy to the divine character as ever." Then he illustrates as follows:

Many a profligate wretch, who has long indulged himself in uncleanness and debauchery, when he has been brought into such circumstances that his wickedness is likely to be discovered so as to bring disgrace and contempt upon him and ruin him in all his worldly interests, has been filled with anxiety and distress, so that he could find no quiet night nor day; he has been convinced of his folly, condemned himself, and reformed his vile practices, being afraid to indulge himself in the least degree as he had done, and resolved that he would carefully avoid such conduct for time to come, and has used unwearied attempts to escape the evil he feared; and in this time of his fear and distress has made many prayers to God, hoping that he would interpose in his behalf, so that he might escape the evil he feared. But when his fears were over and nothing was, in his view, in the way of his going into his former practices without danger of punishment or a discovery, he has returned to them with as much delight and eagerness as ever. In this case every one will be sensible how little in his favor was his reformation, and that under all his fears and terrors and earnest endeavors to avoid evil, his heart was really no better than it was before, and was as much in love with sin. This may in some measure illustrate the case of the awakened sinner with respect to what I have just now been speaking; for there is no more virtue and goodness in fearing evil in the future world, even the punishment of hell, than worldly evil; and the reformation of any particular practices from such fear is from no better principles and no more an evidence of real opposition of heart to sin than in the instance just mentioned.

"This," says Hopkins again, "is carefully kept out of sight" by Mr. Mills; and

he represents the unregenerate as not wholly to blame for their unregeneracy, their unbelief, and not embracing the gospel, but as being under an impotence which does in some measure, if not wholly, excuse. This representation runs through his whole book, and is laid as the foundation of all his opposition to me.

In other words, here was again the old paralyzing doctrine of inability, which was to Hopkins a "refuge of lies."

The dispute between the parties gathered, then, as Hopkins says, "about the true character of the unregenerate sinner."

At a later point Hopkins takes up the question whether "the apathy of the awakened sinner is an encouragement to the abandoned sinner." He answers this by a consideration of the ruling motive of sinners, which he finds in their selfishness. He sketches the efforts of such a sinner, under fear of hell, to secure salvation; and declares that, if the sinner is convinced that "attendance on means" will bring salvation, he will not be deterred by any idea of increased guilt, for it is not his guilt that disturbs him, but his danger.

If, therefore, he does neglect means, and live in known ways of open sin, under a pretence that he is afraid of that greater sin he shall be guilty of if he attends on means and becomes a convinced sinner, it is certain it is but a pretence, in which there is no truth; for if he is afraid of greater sinfulness, why not of less; why does he go on in known sin? If he hates sin and hence sincerely desires to be delivered from it, why does he not leave off sinning and fly to Christ, the only deliverer?

Thus Part I of the answer. Upon this follows a Part II, which is entitled: "Wherein it is inquired, whether God has given any commands to unregenerate sinners, which they do truly comply with and may perfectly obey while unregenerate?" Hopkins' line of argument is already familiar to us. He insists on the "heart" or the motive, necessary to fulfil any command of God's, and this is that element which only the regenerate have. And, finally, we need only notice, near the end of his treatise, and after much other discussion, his summary of the evil tendency of Mr. Mill's Inquiry. This consists in his "representing sinners more to blame for other sins than for the sin of unbelief," in the tendency "to prevent sinners from coming to any proper, true, and thorough conviction of their guilt," to flatter the superficially interested, and to discourage "every sinner who has any good degree of true, genuine conviction," etc., etc.

A second antagonist arose in the person of Rev. William Hart, who wrote a small tract upon President Edwards' theory of virtue.

Mr. Hart had evidently been repelled by the style of Edwards, especially by his excessive abstractness and the unusual significations given to his terms, which mark this brief treatise on virtue more than any other of Edwards' writings. That he had taken little pains to penetrate the hard shell to the kernel and come to an understanding of what Edwards really meant is equally evident; unless, indeed, we are to suppose him too indefinite in his own thinking to be able to follow another as logical as Edwards was.

As an illustration of his attitude we may note the following passage:

Is true religious love to God such as Mr. Edwards here represents it? Does the virtuous or holy mind first entertain a benevolent affection for being in general, abstractly considered, simply as intelligent, and in the next step direct this benevolence chiefly to God, considering him as having the greatest share of mental being? and thus viewing him as most benevolent and beneficent to being simply considered, does the benevolent mind rise in greater benevolence to him, and settle in complacence in him, on this account, from a sort of gratitude to him, as thus befriending the grand object of his primary love? Does not this represent being simply considered as the supreme object of virtuous regard, and make it an idol, and virtue itself idolatrous? Does it not in effect represent love to God as the result of our own virtuous love to simple being, virtue's idol, rather than of his virtuous attraction, and quickening love to us while we were sinners? Do we receive any such ideas from inspired teachers in holy scripture? These views are too shocking.

The historical process by which a man comes to love God is here confounded with the logical relations of ideas. Being simply considered is taken as if it were a different being from God, in opposition to the most express cautions and explanations of Edwards. The last sentence is also characteristic, for the work is pervaded by a kind of holy indignation, which provoked Hopkins to some sarcasms that, however deserved, might have been better omitted.

The argumentative value of the work was not great, for, though he tries to catch Edwards in inconsistencies with himself, he never grapples with the true question at issue between them, which was in fact the question between Calvinism and Pelagianism. And when, in the last chapter but one, he attempts to state the "real nature and essence of true virtue or real holiness," he approaches very near to Edwards, for he defines it thus: "It consists in right and equitable dispositions and actions towards God and our fellow servants."

Still another antagonist had to be met in the person of Rev. Moses Hemmenway, of Wells, Mass., who in 1767 published Seven Sermons on the Obligation and Encouragement of the Unregenerate to Labour for the Meat Which Endureth to Everlasting Life. They seem to have had a purely practical purpose--to increase the attendance upon the means of grace by the uncoverted--and are by no means marked by extremes of any sort. Under the head of "mistaken ends of religious duties" he guards against a number of the same misunderstandings which Hopkins was laboring against. "No one is required to do anything to atone or satisfy for his past offences;" "nor are these duties to be required as meritorious of the favour and kindness of God, or as rendering us worthy objects of his mercy;" they are not "a condition of acceptance with God;" they have not "a promise of faith, or the grace of regeneration annexed to them;" and "the duties or endeavors which God has prescribed to the unregenerate are not prescribed because there is any spiritual goodness in the performances of such persons." The positive doctrine which he is inculcating is summed up in the following sentences:

They ought to repent and believe the gospel and obey all the precepts therein contained, from a true faith in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ the redeemer, from a holy reverence, love, and gratitude, for the majesty and grace displayed in the work of redemption. But they are morally incapable of acting from such views and ends as these, till they have a spiritual knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; yet they are capable of performing the matter of the duties required from lower views, from natural principles, and a different kind of light and influence from the Holy Spirit. And it is their duty and they have encouragement to do what God has required of them, in such a manner and for such ends as these, however defective, rather than not at all. Till their hearts are divinely renewed and their minds savingly enlightened, they are to attend upon the instituted means of grace from a conviction of conscience that God has commanded them to do so, and it is their duty to obey. They are to do it from a desire of further light and instruction, which God has directed them to seek for in this way. They are to do it from a serious concern, if it may be, to find rest to their weary souls, to flee from the wrath to come, and obtain reconciliation with God.

When, now, Hopkins put forth his True State and Character of the Unregenerate in reply to Mr. Mills, Hemmenway found himself as much attacked as Mr. Mills. He therefore issued (1772) a Vindication, which will answer the question which will have arisen in the mind of every reader: how it was that, when he was so near to Hopkins, he could not come nearer. That answer will be given by the fact that he had by no means accepted the new Edwardean philosophy, whether of the will or of the nature of virtue.

He could not, in the first place, accept the distinction which Edwards had made between natural and moral ability and inability. He could not understand what was meant by natural inability (defined by Edwards as inability because of "some impeding defect or obstacle that is extrinsic to the Will"), because he could not get at the precise meaning of "will" in such a connection. He is not ready to accept the division of the soul into faculties; for "some, who have been no mean philosophers, have thought that no real and natural distinction could be made between the faculties, habits, acts, and objects of the understanding and the will." He mentions the threefold, and Edwards' twofold, division of the faculties, but decides for neither, and is indeed averse to such discussions, for "it is not surely fit that a distinction of so much importance as this, between that inability which excuses and that which does not, should turn upon so nice and abstruse a point as whether the defect or obstacle lies in the understanding or the will." He notes the ambiguity which attended Edwards' use of the word "inclination," but does not press this as he should.

When he comes to state what he himself understands under the inability of the unregenerate, he distinguishes between the powers or faculties of the soul, in respect to which it is "indifferently capable of sin or holiness, and its "habits," which he otherwise terms "secondary powers of moral action," and which are "any principle, disposition, or propensity which is the foundation of men's loving or hating particular objects, or acting in a particular manner." It is the lack of such a habit (comparable to skill in speaking a particular language), "disposing them to holy affections and actions," which constitutes the inability of the unregenerate.

It is for the purpose of still further clearing up this topic that Hemmenway now passes to the nature of true holiness; and here his second great difference from Edwards appears. "Holiness," he says, "consists in conformity to the preceptive will of God." He does not mean thereby that right and wrong are founded in the will of God. God has commanded us to be holy "because it is right."

Now, one would expect, if there was to be a difference from Hopkins established here, that Hemmenway should next declare that an outward act, such as attendance upon the public worship of God, performed by an unregenerate person, might be holy, at least in some respect, because it is "in conformity to the preceptive will of God." Indeed, he does use expressions which hint at this. He speaks of an action as "not absolutely holy, though in some particulars it may be good." But when he comes to define the "principles of holy obedience," they are (1) "a supernatural habit communicated in regeneration," (2) "a true faith in God, in Christ," (3) "the special influence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us," (4) "love, the greatest of Christian graces, without which we with all our endowments and works are nothing." This falls very little short of being Edwardean. But it is not intended to be that, for a little later, with explicit reference to Edwards, Hemmenway says of true holiness that "it seems not to be an exact and just definition to say, `its essence consists in general benevolence.'" He continues:

For, though it be true that general benevolence is a holy affection, yet holiness does not consist wholly in right affections. Not only love but good works are required in the divine command. Effective acts of the soul are as really of the nature of holiness as immanent exercises, when they are in themselves, and in their circumstances and qualifications, conformable to the will of God . . . And, besides, there is a rectitude of nature conformable to the law, distinct from all exercises of the soul whatever. This definition then appears to be defective, narrow, and inadequate.

With the true meaning of Edwards he does not, therefore, grapple. He is both more pointed and more successful in refuting Hopkins' statement that "the unregenerate act wholly from self-love."

The final outcome of all his discussions is perhaps sufficiently embraced in the following paragraph in the section entitled, "the unregenerate able and obliged to do actions materially good:"

It has been proved that the unregenerate who enjoy gospel privileges are able, by the common assistance of divine providence and grace, to reform their lives; to break off from courses and acts of open sin in opposition to the dictates of their own conscience; to do actions materially good, and that seriously and conscientiously according to their present light. They have both faculties and principles of action sufficient for these things. If these things are enjoined upon them by and contained in those commands which God in his word has laid upon them, then it is their duty thus to reform their lives, and attend the means of grace, that is, something is their duty which they have a power to do before regeneration.

A serious problem was now presented to Hopkins. With Hart's Remarks on President Edwards' Dissertation and Hemmenway's Vindication before him, he saw that the true difficulty as to "unregenerate doings" was the failure to understand, or at least to accept, the doctrines of the will and of virtue which the master had set forth. He determined, therefore, in order that he might introduce these doctrines to the thinking of the day, to reply to these last tracts by a new presentation, in his own language, of the theory of holiness which Edwards had originated. This he did in 1773, issuing his Inquiry into the Nature of True Holiness, to which were added appendices in which he paid detailed attention to his opponents. He confessed his entire agreement with Edwards, and our treatment of the book may, therefore, be the briefer.

The preface, however, contains a remark which may attract our attention:

I humbly conceive there has been too little attention to the nature of holiness among divines in general, and that a proper and intelligible definition of it is not easily to be found in bodies of divinity or elsewhere. And most of those who think it a very easy matter to tell what holiness is, and that we are all agreed in this, have been contented with a set of words which express no distinct ideas, but leave the thing wholly in the dark. They will perhaps say, God's holiness is his purity. If it is asked, In what does this purity consist? the common answer is, In that which is opposite to all sin, the greatest impurity. We have now got what, I think, is the most common definition of holiness. But who is the wiser? This does not help us to any idea of this purity, unless we know what sin is. But this can not be known so long as we know not what holiness is; for we do not learn what holiness is by first obtaining the idea of sin, but we must first know what holiness, or, which is the same, what the divine law is, in order to the knowledge of sin.

The method of Hopkins in traversing the ground which Edwards had so fully covered was evidently governed by the reasons which led him to write the treatise. He does not begin at a point so remote from the thinking of ordinary men as Edwards did, nor seek to ground his theory so entirely in one fundamental principle. Yet it will be noted that his method is substantially the same. Thus he begins, not with ideal harmony in the universe, nor with virtue as beauty, but with a series of plain statements as to holiness--that it is reasonable, as the greatest good in the universe, the highest possible excellence, the most perfect and beautiful union of intelligent beings, the same thing in all beings, simple, etc. He then advances to his proposition, "Holiness consists in Love," which he proves from the Scriptures exclusively. Then follows the question, "What is that love in which all true holiness consists?" and he defines it as "universal benevolence, or friendly affection to all intelligent beings." This is more intelligible than Edwards' "love to being in general." Then, after discussing self-love, Hopkins goes over all those particulars which he laid down in the opening section, and shows that universal, "disinterested" (his favorite and characteristic term) benevolence satisfies all those statements. After some further Scripture proofs, and the brief discussion of objections, his treatise is brought to an end.

But Hopkins did not suppose himself to be merely restating what Edwards had already stated. He viewed himself as having made certain substantial and important "improvements."

The chief of these consisted in his statement of the "opposition of holiness to self-love." The improvement does not consist in any new view of self-love in itself, for the definition given by the two divines is substantially the same. Edwards says: "Self-love . . . signifies a mans regard to his confined, private self, or love to himself with respect to his private interest." Hopkins says: "It is a man's love of his own self as self, and of nothing else." According to both, such self-love is sinful, for a man must love himself for the same reason as he loves other men, or else, not having the right motive in it, such love is not virtuous. He must love himself and consider his own interests as a part of being in general. Thus alone will he be able to subordinate his own good to the good of others, and thus only to love his neighbor as himself, and God supremely.

But Hopkins deemed that he added to the doctrine of Edwards a valuable element when he taught that "all sin consists in self-love and what is implied in this." We have already considered Edwards' definition of sin. Sin, according to him, is any other elective preference than that of the good of being in general. The whole treatise is in accordance with this idea, and gives no indication of Hopkins' new position. Edwards' chapter in the Nature of Virtue upon self-love is engaged in showing how many supposed virtues may flow from nothing but self-love, and so have no really virtuous character, however amiable they may appear. Hopkins does not stop with this plain proposition that all selfishness is sin, but converts it and maintains that all sin is selfishness.

There is something attractive about the proposition to reduce sin to one principle, as virtue may be reduced to one; for there is a certain symmetry thereby introduced into ethics. But it is doubtful if sin is a very symmetrical thing. Hopkins has probably presented this matter as strongly as any of his successors, many of whom adopted his view. But he does not prove his case. His arguments may be briefly summarized thus:

1. "Self-love is in its whole nature and in every degree of it, enmity against God." True; but this is only to say: "All selfishness is sin."

2. "Self-love, exercised and indulged, blinds the heart to every true moral excellence and beauty: this does not suit the taste of the selfish heart but gives it disgust." In other words, selfishness is injurious; but it does not show that every injury of the kind arises from selfishness.

3. Self-love is the source of all the profaneness and impiety in the world." This is not proved. Is there not some impiety which develops from another root than selfishness?

4. A final argument is rather implied than stated by Hopkins. It may be put in modern phrase thus: The opposition between holiness and selfishness is that between a wholly disinterested affection and a wholly interested affection. As the disinterested affection comprises the whole of holiness, so the interested affection comprises the whole of sin. This is as strong a statement of the argument as can be made; but it derives its whole force from the idea of symmetry above alluded to, and that force falls short of proof. The rest of the argument is conspicuously fallacious. It is the simple conversion of the universal affirmative proposition without limitation. It is as absurd as to maintain that all white men are Englishmen, because all Englishmen are white.

Another particular in which Hopkins attempted to improve upon Edwards was in the answer to objections. The most important of these at the present day, and the most plausible in itself, was that which appealed to the biblical use of rewards to induce men to repent. They suppose that men have self-love, and that it is proper to be influenced by this. But if so, it cannot be sinful. Hopkins makes short work with this. They are, after all, not addressed to self-love, because they are rewards of a character which will never appeal to a selfish man; and the evils which the Bible uses as threats are such as a selfish man will dread, but also such as will lead him to forsake his selfishness with his sin.

The honor which the proud man seeks is not the same which Christ promises to him who humbleth himself, but entirely of a different nature and contrary to it. A person who humbles himself renounces that self-exaltation and honor in comparison with other beings which pride and selfishness seek, and places his honor and happiness in abasing himself and becoming the servant of all, by exalting God and promoting his glory, and serving his fellow creatures, ministering to their greatest good in the exercise of universal benevolence; and so obtains true exaltation and honor which is most contrary to selfishness and pride.

Hopkins thus brought out more clearly than Edwards had done the absolute inconsistency of selfishness with religion. He recognized how largely the religion of some men consists in selfishness and lacks the elements of true religion. Much preaching consisted of little else but appeals to selfishness, thus attempting to build up the people in holiness by fostering the very principle in which Hopkins saw the essence of all sin. Accordingly, in his "inferences," he attacked the same point again, and here advanced the doctrine which, probably more than any other feature of his teaching, excited the opposition of his critics and reflected discredit in their eyes upon its author, viz., the doctrine that a man, in order to be saved, must be willing to be damned.

This doctrine comes in under the second inference, as to the nature of true self-denial. The question is suggested whether persons are to give up their eternal interest in self-denial so as not to have a selfish regard to this in their religious exercises. The answer is sufficiently strenuous:

Whatever temporal good any one gives up for the sake of his own eternal interest, and wholly from self-love, he is, by the supposition, as selfish in this as he can be in anything whatsoever; and therefore there is no self-denial in it, if self-denial is acting contrary to self or denying ourselves. So that he who does not know how to deny himself with respect to his eternal interest, is really a stranger to self-denial . . . But let it be kept in mind that in the practice of the greatest self-denial a person does not divest himself of a love of happiness; . . . but he places his happiness, not in his own private interest, but in a good more worthy to be sought, viz., the glory of God, and the prosperity of his church and kingdom. For the sake of this he gives up the former and forgets himself.

Or, as he says a little below, we are to love God "without making any conditions in regard to ourselves." The further question is then asked: "How can our eternal interest be inconsistent with the greatest display of God's glory, and the highest interests of his kingdom?" And the answer is:

If we know that we are true Christians, we may be sure that it is for the glory of God and good of the whole that we should be eternally happy in his kingdom. But even in this case we are capable of making the supposition that it would not be so; and, on this supposition, we shall be disposed to give up all our personal interest, so far as we are in the exercise of disinterested affection and willing to deny ourselves. But if we do not know that we have embraced the gospel, we cannot be sure that it is, on the whole, most for the honor of God and the glory and happiness of his kingdom that our eternal happiness should be secured; so we have opportunity to try how we shall feel and be disposed on such a supposition.

This doctrine excited so much opposition that Hopkins thought it best to defend it in a special tract, which he entitled A Dialogue between a Calvinist and a Semi-Calvinist --which, by the way, shows his idea of his own thorough-going Calvinism. He reiterates the doctrine that if being cast off by God is necessary in order to secure a greater good than his own salvation, the Christian ought to be willing thus to be cast off. It is a very large if; as Hopkins repeatedly says, "a supposition," an "impossible supposition;" but it is a supposition which it is well to make in order "to show that there may be a greater evil than the damnation of one individual."

The objections to his view which Hopkins answers in this tract show his estimate of the importance of the idea. One of them is "that it would be wicked: for we are commanded to do that which is directly contrary to this, viz., to desire and to seek to escape damnation and to be saved." The reply is that by being willing to be damned is not meant being pleased with it, or desiring and choosing it for its own sake, but only being willing if it be necessary to secure some greater good. Another objection is: "It is impossible that a man should be willing to give up all good and to be miserable forever for the sake of the good of others, be it ever so great." The answer is that it is not impossible, for it is reasonable, and men, like St. Paul who was willing to be accursed from Christ for his brethren's sake, have actually been thus willing. A third objection is: "We ought to make the glory of God our supreme end; but this will be so far from making us willing to be damned that it will lead us to desire and pursue our salvation, that he may be glorified in that and that we may glorify him forever." The reply rests upon the doctrine advanced in the sermons upon the permission of sin, that the damnation of unrepentant sinners is for the glory of God. It runs:

But it is not for the glory of God that all should be saved, but most for his glory that a number should be damned; otherwise all would be saved. We will, therefore, now make a supposition, which is not an impossible one, viz., that it is most for God's glory and for the universal good that you should be damned; ought you not to be willing to be damned on this supposition, that God could not be glorified by you in any other way?

The objector now takes another position: "But suppose he knows he loves God, and therefore knows that it is for the glory of God that he should be saved?" To which Hopkins:

No man can know that he loves God until he really does love him; that is until he does seek his glory above all things, and is disposed to say, "Let God be glorified whatever may be necessary in order to it," without making any exception. And this is to be willing to be damned, if this be necessary for the glory of God.

And finally the objector says that this is a puzzling doctrine, tending to perplex and discourage Christians, and should therefore be avoided. Hopkins replies that it may puzzle half-hearted Christians, or true Christians who have never considered these matters, but it will powerfully tend to expose the weakness and wickedness of the former when understood, and will confirm the latter and establish them. And hence it is a doctrine exceedingly important to strip false professors of all disguises and bring them really to Christ.

The intensely earnest and radical spirit of Hopkinsianism appears here more clearly, perhaps, than anywhere else. What will such a spirit effect in the development of a new theology? We are to see what it did effect.

But to return from this digression to the treatise upon holiness. The first appendix is taken up with a more detailed answer to Hart's Remarks, which have already been summarized. The book would seem to have required little reply in any case, and to have received all it needed in the exhaustive discussions which Hopkins had just finished in the body of his new presentation of the theory of virtue. But it was a critical moment in the fortunes of the new theology; and Hopkins felt called upon, as Edwards had before him, to pulverize all opposition. He therefore seized upon every weak point and exposed every inconsistency in his adversary. Three special points needed a more substantial consideration: Hart's objections to Edwards' "being simply considered," his confusion as to the meaning of Edwards' "secondary beauty," and his own attempts to state the nature of true virtue. His reply to the first of these we may summarize in the phrase that by such expressions as "being simply considered," being "in general," etc., Edwards meant being as such, or for its own sake. We are commanded to love God for his own sake, for what he is in himself. The answer to the second was as follows:

Mr. Edwards observes there are two kinds of beauty. One is moral beauty, or the beauty of true virtue or holiness, which is the highest kind of beauty, and consists in cordial agreement and harmony, or general benevolence, and is discerned and approved of by such only who love true holiness, which love is itself the exercise of holiness. The other is natural beauty, which consists in natural harmony or agreement, and takes place in the natural and material world in numberless instances. And this same kind of beauty is found in things immaterial and mental, as well as in other things, and there is a natural beauty in virtuous exercises of the mind, and the fruit of those exercises, which is entirely distinct from the moral, holy beauty, and of a different nature; even the same kind of beauty which is found in the material world . . . This natural beauty is found . . . especially in relative duties between man and man, according to their different stations and relations, which may be relished and delighted in by those who have no virtue, as a taste for this natural beauty is natural to all men, and does not imply disinterested benevolence, but is consistent with the highest degree of selfishness and sin.

As to the last point, Hopkins declared that Hart really agreed with Edwards:

Thus we see Mr. H. represents his equitable affection as a friendly love, which is really universal benevolence, which is love to being in general. And he says, "This spirit of equitable, friendly regard will dispose the virtuous mind to behave to every one in a manner suitable to their various characters, offices, and relations." This "friendly regard" is benevolence and nothing else; and it must be universal benevolence if it will dispose to behave to every one in a suitable manner. And this must be true virtue in its essential nature, and comprehend the whole of holiness, as this will lead to all right exercises and conduct towards every one.

The third appendix took up in like manner Mr. Hemmenway's Vindication. It does not attempt to go to the bottom of Hemmenway's differences, for this has already been done in the body of the work. If he could be brought to accept the Edwardean doctrine, he would relinquish his minor errors of himself. But Hopkins did not excuse himself for this reason from a more detailed consideration of these minor errors. He attempted to show how they all rested upon confusion of thought. Hemmenway's "act of the will ab extra," considered without reference to its motive and in this aspect possessing something of an acceptable quality before God, Hopkins declared to be inconceivable, because, if you abstract from the motive, the act is not moral at all, and so does not enter into the consideration. But he does not pause here; he pushes Hemmenway to the wall, after the manner of this school of terrible dialecticians, by showing that Hemmenway has really acknowledged as much by what he said of Judas, when he said it was not "matter of duty" but "vile treachery, in Judas, to kiss his Lord in order to betray him." Hopkins disposes of the supposition in one sentence: "If matter of duty was the effective act of the will abstracted from all circumstances, then Judas did the matter of duty as much as any one can." He also brings out Hemmenway's inconsistency in still another position, in supposing that acts of duty may be done from self-love, an innocent principle, and so be externally right. In discussing inability a more fundamental question was touched upon, and Hopkins pushed Hemmenway hard when he urged the question how a "natural inability" could be maintained which did not excuse the sinner. The advantage here was divided between the contestants, for Hemmenway was right in affirming that Edwards' moral inability was really a natural inability, and Hopkins was right in emphasizing, upon the basis of the new theory which was beginning to emerge in his own mind, that the sinner was subjected to no real natural inability. In one sentence Hopkins planted himself entirely upon the "exercise" platform, when he said that Hemmenway ought to "have offered some proof" that there is "a holy principle, distinct from all exercise of the heart, necessary in order to all holy acts of the will."

These were the principal controversies in which Hopkins engaged. Other controversial writings of a minor character will be noticed in their appropriate connections. Those we have just reviewed led him to a more precise formulation of his thought, and developed him as a constructive theologian, as well as gave him fame and influence throughout New England. He has thus proved his power and given sample of his work. Will he do still more, and will he inscribe his name among the great systematic divines of the world? The next chapter must show.

 

 

 

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