employed in the labours of agricul- Mr. Hopkins could not but admit,

that a warm affection for the Redeemer would exist in those who had been saved by him from their sins; and as he was conscious of no such love to the Son of God, he became convinced that he was destitute of the spirit of the Gospel. The sense of his ignorance and of his sin impelled him to seek instruction and supplicate mercy. At length he was enlightened with the knowledge of the way of salvation. The character of Jesus Christ, as a mediator between God and man, filled him with joy to which he had before been a stranger. Still he did not indulge the hope that he was a Christian. His mind was for some time principally occupied by the consideration of his unworthiness, helplessness, and guilt. Many whole days he spent in fasting and prayer. September, 1741, he retired to his father's house, and lived a recluse for a number of months, except when he could hold intercourse with persons zealous in religion. In De

In

ture, until he entered his fifteenth year; and such was the purity of manners among the youth of this place, that he never heard from any of them a profane expression. After having been placed for a short time under the tuition of Mr. Graham, of Woodbury, he entered Yale College, where he graduated in 1741. While a member of that institution, he made a public profession of religion. He diligently studied the Scriptures, and was constant in his secret devotions; but he was afterwards convinced that he did all this without any true love to the character of God, and that, as yet, he was ignorant of that religion which has its seat in the heart. It was during the remarkable attention to the things of a better world, excited in the college and town of Newhaven by the preaching of Mr. Whitfield and Gilbert Tennent, in the year 1741, that his false confidence was shaken. Such was the extraordinary zeal for religion, which was at that time called into action, that a num-cember he went to Northampton, to ber of the members of the college were impelled to visit their fellowstudents without regard to the distinction of classes, and to speak to them of the important concerns of eternity. At this period David Brainerd, then a student, entered the room of Mr. Hopkins, and though he could draw nothing from him, and found him completely reserved, yet he made a remark which sank into his heart. He observed that it was impossible for any man to be a real Christian who was not sometimes deeply affected in contemplating the character of Christ.

pursue the study of divinity with Mr. Edwards. In July, 1743, he went to Houssatonnoc, now Great Barrington, where he was ordained December 28, 1743. At this time there were only thirty families in the place. Here he continued till January 18, 1769, when he resigned

his charge. This event was occasioned by the diminution of his society and the want of support. An episcopal church had been established in the town, in order to escape the tax for the maintenance of a minister of the Gospel.

He was again settled in the mini

April 11, 1770. There were some circumstances attending his establishment in this place which were remarkable, and which prove that the hearts of all men are in the hands of God, and may be turned as the rivers of water are turned.

stry at Newport, Rhode Island, church and congregation much diminished. The meeting-house had been made a barrack for soldiers. That portion of his former society which had remained in the town, had become so impoverished, that he had no prospect of a maintenance. Yet such was his benevolence, that he preached to them a year, supported entirely by a few generous friends; and when he received a pressing invitation to settle at Middleborough, the request of his people induced him to decline it. From this time till his death his maintenance was derived entirely from a weekly contribution and the donations of his friends. But he was contented with his humble circumstances, and in a situation which would have filled most minds with the greatest anxiety, he cast himself upon the providence of God, and experienced through a course of years many remarkable interpositions in his favour. His wants were always supplied. January, 1799, a paralytic affection deprived him of the use of his limbs, although his mental powers were uninjured. But he afterwards recovered from this attack, so as to be able to preach. He died December 20, 1803, aged eighty-two.

After he had been with this people some time, a meeting was called, and it was voted not to give him an invitation to settle among them. Many were dissatisfied with his sentiments. He accordingly made his preparations to leave them, and on the sabbath preached a farewell discourse. This ser non was so interesting and impressive, that a different vote was immediately and almost unanimously passed, and he consented to remain. For about four years he was unwearied in the discharge of his pastoral duties, preaching a lecture every week in addition to the services of the Sabbath, and seizing every opportunity to impart religious instruction. The war of the revolution interrupted his benevolent labours.

In December, 1776, when the British took possession of Newport, he left the town, and retired to his family, which he had before sent to Great Barrington. During the summer of 1777 he preached at Newburyport, in a congregation which was thought to be the largest in America. Its pastor, Mr. Parsons, died a short time before. He afterwards preached in Canterbury and Stamford.

Dr. Hopkins was a very humble, pious, and benevolent man. His views of his own character were always very abasing. This humility pervaded his whole conduct. It preserved him from that overbearing zeal which is the offspring of selfconfidence and pride. In his interIn the spring of 1780 he returned course with persons of sentiments to Newport, which had been evacu- different from his own, he exhibited ated by the British in the fall of the greatest mildness and candour. the preceding year. He found his As truth was his object, and he

never disputed for victory, he some times carried conviction to an opponent by the force of arguments. He sympathised in the distresses of others. He took delight in relieving the wants of the poor. Though he had but little to bestow, yet many were gladdened by his liberality. On one occasion he contributed one hundred dollars for promoting the Gospel among the Africans. His life was spent chiefly in meditation; his preaching had but little effect. He sometimes devoted to his studies eighteen hours in a day.

of the Lord Jesus, their master, and to call upon men immediately to repent and yield themselves to the love of God. He thought that religious advantages, if, in the use of them, the unregenerate were not converted, would but increase guilt, as in this case there would be a greater resistance to the truth.

Another sentiment, which is considered as one of the peculiar sentiments of Dr. Hopkins, is, that the inability of sinners is moral and not natural; but this is only saying, that their inability consists in disinclination of heart, or opposition of will to what is good. Combining the Calvinistic doctrine, that God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass with his views of the nature of sin, as consisting entirely in the intention or disposition of the mind, he inferred that it was no impeachment upon the character of the most righteous Disposer of all events to say, not merely that he decreed the existence of sin, but that he exerted his own power to produce it. The design being benevolent, he contended that this agency is no more an impeachment of the Divine character than the bare permission of sin. This is another of his peculiarities. In this he differed from President Edwards, who maintained, that sin was "not the fruit of any

With respect to his views of Divine truth, he embraced the Calvinistic doctrines; and it is principally by the consequences which he drew from these doctrines that his name has been rendered famous. He fully admitted the doctrine of the entire depravity of the human heart, and the sinfulness of all the doings of the unregenerate, but thought there was a discordance between this doctrine and the preaching of so:ne of the Calvinistic divines, who exhorted the unregenerate, as such, to perform certain acts as the appointed way to obtain that grace which should renew their hearts and make them holy. If men, before conversion, could do nothing that was pleasing to God, he concluded they could do nothing to procure the influences of the Holy Spirit. Instead, therefore, of exhort-positive agency or influence of the ing sinners to use the means of grace in order to obtain the Divine assistance to enable them to repent, when it was acknowledged, that in the use of the means of grace they would be entirely sinful, he thought it a sacred duty, incumbent on the ministers of the Gospel, to imitate the preaching

Most High," and who said, "if, by the author of sin, he meant the sinner, the agent, or actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing, so it would be a reproach and blasphemy to suppose God to be the author of sin." It may indeed well excite astonishment, that a man of intelligence and piety

should be so bewildered in metaphysics, as to ascribe to God the efficient production of all sinful volitions, and yet deem himself responsible for such volitions. From his views of the nature of holiness, as consisting in disinterested benevolence, he also inferred that a Christian should be willing to perish for ever, to be for ever miserable, if it should be for the glory of God and the good of the universe, that he

should encounter this destruction. Instead of the Calvinistic doctrine of the strict imputation of Adam's sin and of the righteousness of Christ, he chose rather to adopt the language of Scripture, that on account of the first transgression, men were made or constituted sinners, and that men are justified on account of the righteousness of Christ, or through the redemption which there is in him.

Popery.

THE INQUISITION.

THE work of Bible-burning and of such persons, to come forward imprisoning Bible readers has been resumed in some parts of the Continent, but on a very small scale, so that in the countries in which Popery is rampant, there are restraining influences brought to bear upon it from without. The punishment of heretics is a much less noisy and popular business now than it was three hundred years back. The work of an inquisitor in those days was somewhat arduous. The method of procedure was a little different in the ancient from what it is in the more modern Inquisition; but the latter is most severe. On being appointed, an inquisitor demanded a mandate from the king or magistrate, requiring the tribunals to arrest suspected persons; if the magistrate refused, he was excommunicated. When he went to a particular station, the inquisitor preached in public, and then read an edict, requiring all heretics to confess, and all having any knowledge

and accuse them, on pain of excommunication. If persons came forward confessing their heresy within thirty days, they received absolution in public, and were reconciled, but subjected to certain penances and penalties-such as being forbidden the use of gold, silver, pearls, silk, and fine wool. If they confessed after thirty days' grace, their goods were confiscated. If they did not confess, but were accused, and proved to be guilty, there was no alternative, but either to abjure the heresy or to be punished; in the case of a semi-proof being esta- ! blished, torture was had recourse to, for the purpose of eliciting confession. In the course of his trial a prisoner never saw his accusation, or knew his accusers; the evidence against him was not made known, except a few extracts from the declaration of witnesses, which were sufficient to alarm him, but which

left him in total ignorance of the real state of the suit against him. In these circumstances it was safer for an innocent man to confess heresy and abjure it at once, than to run the hazard of a trial. If, after confession, he relapsed, or was again suspected, he was again subjected to torture, or given over to be executed or burnt.

MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. In the recent description relative to the Popish College of Maynooth, Mr. Whiteside, the barrister, having proved that Maynooth is a Jesuit

After burning Hebrew Bibles and other books from 1490 to 1523, the Inquisition took measures for pre-establishment, and, therefore, an venting the circulation of such works as were distasteful to them. In 1539 the University of Louvain was ordered to make up an index of prohibited books; in 1549 it was augmented by the inquisitor-general; in 1550 it was again published with additions, including translations of the Holy Bible! nay, in 1558, theologians were required to give up the Hebrew and Greek Bible! and by a law of Philip II., those who should buy, keep, read, or sell books thus prohibited by the inquisitor, were subject to the penalty of death and confiscation. In this same year, Paul IV. addressed a brief to the inquisitor-general of Valas, commending him to prosecute all schismatics and heretics; "to deprive all such persons of their dignities and offices, whether bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals, or legates; barons, counts, marquises, dukes, princes, kings, or emperors!"

The horrible results of this system of tyranny and persecution are thus stated by Llorente:-" From 1481 to 1809, under forty-four inquisitorsgeneral, there were, in the Peninsula alone,

illegal college, showed, that among other mischiefs produced by it, conventual institutions had prodigiously increased. "The monastic institutions," he said, "now number 115 inmates, and conventual, 113. The regular clergy, who are the Pope's body guard, are 400 in Ireland, notwithstanding the existing provisions of the Act of Emancipation." And as all this is a gross breach of the understanding when the grant was made, it amounts to a forfeiture of all pretensions to Parliamentary bounty. There is also a vast acquisition of property in money, houses, and lands, contrary to law. On this subject, as regards England, Mr. S. P. Day, formerly of the Order of the Presentation, slightly touches in his valuable work on Monastic Institutions, just published. He computes that the 75 convents for women, existing in England in 1853, were augmented by 5 in 1854, and that they contain, on an average, 20 inmates each, or in all, 1,600 nuns. The dowry of each of these women he estimates at £480, though “many bring ten times the amount;" so that the whole, on this low calculation, yields a capital of £720,000,