1814 CALVINISM & HOPKINSIANISM. Debate on New Light, Great Awakening Hell-Fire and Brimstone Preaching.

In the heat of the Second Great Awakening, New Light revivalist divines found language for retaining the sinful nature of humans with the personal responsibility emphasis of the revival movement, especially as articulated by Charles Grandison Finney, etc., even those far more conservative found his language regarding response something to lean into. 

And they found that language in the writings of Samuel Hopkins, probably Jonathan Edwards' most influential disciple. Hopkins believed the sinful nature wasn't imputed, but embodied. And that Christ's righteousness wasn't imputed, but embodied . . . that the work of the fall and the work of redemption were more active than legal. By this he intended not to diminish, but to dramatize and heighten sin and redemption. With more extreme Calvinists like John Gill [the Baptist] in England, he argued that infants were fallen and damned by nature. 

All of this fit the hell-fire ethos of the Second Great Awakening like a glove and thus the theological battle was co-mingled with the broader struggle between Old School and New Light Presbyterians, etc., 

This volume was one of the most significant works published in the context of that conversation. Fascinating reading. Includes interaction with the works of Jonathan Edwards, New Light Divinity, etc., 

Wilson, James. Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Providence. Letters to the Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely, A. M. Author of A Contrast between Calvinism and Hopkinsianism. Boston. Bradford and Read, and by John Brewer, Providnece. 1814. 325pp.

Original full calf, chipped at spine as shown, hinges breached at surface, but sound. Leather consolidated with rubbing, through at points. Interior good with some moderate foxing and toning. Solid.