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 A DISCOURSE 
 
 Delivered by appointment of the Right Reverend Horatio 
 Potter, D.D., Bishop of New York, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATION, 
 
 City of New York, on the 2^th day of yune, A. D., 1 873, 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 SAMUEL SEABURY, D. D., 
 
 Presbyter of the Diocese of New York, Professor of 
 Biblical Learning and Interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture in the General Theological Seminary, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. SAMUEL ROOSEVELT JOHNSON, D.D. 
 
 Emeritus Professor of Systematic Divinity in the General 
 
 Theological Seminary, Rector of St. Thomas 
 
 Church, Amenia Union, N. Y.
 
 S4-I j-^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following Discourse was left in my hands by its lamented 
 author in July last, with a note suggesting that if published it 
 should be accompanied by an appendix containing copies of the 
 various resolutions passed in relation to the subject of it. The 
 author had before conversed with me in regard to the publication of 
 the Discourse, and had expressed his willingness that this disposition 
 should be made of it. So far as we could learn, there was a decided 
 conviction on the part of those who had heard it, that it ought to be 
 published. The doubt was as to the quarter from which such pub- 
 lication should proceed. Under the circumstances it has seemed to 
 the members of Dr. Seabury's family that they would pay only a 
 proper respect both to the subject and to the author of the Dis- 
 course, by causing to be printed a number of copies sufficient for 
 distribution among those who might be interested to receive them. 
 
 While this conclusion was being reached, and preliminary arrange- 
 ments were he'mg made, and while I promised myself the pleasure of 
 conference with the author upon several matters suggested by his 
 Discourse, he was called to follow the friend whom in his last act of 
 public interest he had so lovingly commemorated : an event calcu- 
 lated to give additional value to pages which already must have 
 been doubly interesting to those who knew and appreciated both of 
 these venerable men, since the memoir, while a picture of its subject, 
 is in some characteristic particulars a remarkable and happy re- 
 flection of its author, who ail-innocently embalmed himself in the 
 tomb which his loving kindness wrought out for his friend. 
 
 The departure of Dr. Johnson necessarily threw the work of 
 editing his Discourse upon some other, and the circumstance that it 
 
 550088
 
 n PREFACE. 
 
 is printed by Dr. Seabury's family has not unnaturally devolved 
 the task upon me. In the discharge of this duty, I have, on consul- 
 tation with the son of the author, the Rev. William Allen Johnson, 
 and by his permission, made a few verbal alterations, which ob- 
 viously appeared to be such as the author himself would have 
 made had his attention been directed to the occasion for them. I 
 have also made one or two notes of reference. Otherwise the 
 manuscript is printed as I received it from the author. 
 
 It is with unaffected pleasure that I avail myself of the present 
 opportunity to express my grateful appreciation of the labours of 
 the author in the work committed to him. These, as well as the 
 loving spirit with which they were performed, challenge my grati- 
 tude and admiration, and have increased the respectful affection 
 which I have always entertained for him. While I say this, how- 
 ever, I trust that I shall not appear to pass the bounds of propriety, 
 if I add that there are some passages in the Discourse which 
 appear to me to have been based upon a misunderstanding of the 
 position of the subject of it. I feel the less hesitation in saying 
 this here, because after the Discourse was delivered I said as much 
 to the author, who in one particular modified his expressions in such 
 a way as to avoid an inference, which, as he saw when it was 
 pointed out to him, might have been drawn to a disparagement 
 which he was far from intending. 
 
 With respect to another subject, I had a conference with the 
 author, which, unhappily, I had no opportunity of resuming. I 
 felt that I could not concur with him in his intimation of changes 
 on the part of Dr. Seabury in the latter part of his life, nor was I 
 content to accept the method by which he sought to account for an 
 assumed appearance of change. On the contrary, not to look 
 further than the example cited, I find in Dr. Seabury's manuscripts 
 of the last year or two of his life, and of more than twenty years 
 ago, unmistakable evidence of identity of doctrine in regard to 
 the Holy Eucharist. The Discourse, however, seems to leave the 
 reader under the impression either that Dr. Seabury changed his 
 ground, or else that the ground which he had previously held was 
 not that which it seemed to be. As instrumental in perpetuating a 
 memorial which appears to present such an alternative, I feel bound
 
 PREFACE. m 
 
 to say that I do not assent to either branch of it, and that I am 
 unwilling to have it inferred from my silence that I admit, or that I 
 suppose my father would have admitted, either that there was in 
 him such a change as the author seems to extenuate, or that he held 
 lower or other views than were exactly contained in the true sense 
 of the words which he was in the habit of using to express them. 
 
 WM. J. SEABURY. 
 
 Annunciation Rectory, 
 
 Feast of St. Luke, 1873.
 
 MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 Nothing seems more easy in the distance and yet 
 is harder when the work draws near, than a formal, 
 official tribute to the memory of a great man, greatly 
 beloved, eminent for his abilities and of high repu- 
 tation, and of a long, various, complicated life. 
 Sometimes, especially in old age and in perplexity, 
 the power of touching a particular subject becomes 
 capricious and will not work. Then there is a natu- 
 ral uneasiness that justice may not be done to it, 
 that it may be treated inadequately, unfortunately. 
 Yet, after all, I have the comforting conviction that 
 he who is the subject here is his own master. Strong 
 and independent as he always was, his memory will 
 protect itself now he is gone. His merit and repu- 
 tation are self-sustained, and will not lose, and will 
 hardly gain by the memorial of affection or the 
 expressed opinion of a transient judgment. The 
 memorial soon passes out of sight and out of mem- 
 
 i^
 
 ory, while tlie great mind survives, and its history. 
 We may safely leave him alone in his own right, on 
 his own domain. The years which pass, which dwell 
 upon the great and good elements which made him up, 
 which last beyond our day, and beyond local and 
 personal questions, will secure his name and fame, 
 and I predict for the long period with increasing 
 interest and reputation. 
 
 I, selected for this solemn yet inspiring occasion, 
 by the voice and by the hands of my revered and 
 beloved Bishop, own it duty and feel it privilege, 
 and must not have a fear. 
 
 Samuel Seabury was born at New London, Con- 
 necticut, Tuesday, June 9, 1801. He was of a 
 remarkably pure English stock, very little of any 
 other race contributing its blood. The family came 
 from Devonshire, Eng^land, and resided first in Mas- 
 sachusetts, then in Connecticut. John Seabury, 
 the Bishop's grandfather, came from Plymouth, 
 Massachusetts, to Groton, Connecticut, and was a 
 deacon amons; the Conojreo^ationalists. His wife 
 was descended from John Alden, famed as the first 
 man who landed from the Mayflower on Plymouth 
 Rock. And all the names from the first record to 
 the mother of Dr. Seabury himself, with one half 
 exception of a Scottish name, " Stewart," interposed, 
 show the clear Anglo-Saxon and Norman stock, the
 
 -+ 
 
 grand old Puritan blood, wliich, when brought into 
 the Church of Christ, with wider yet less devious 
 and willful current, and with somewhat to redeem 
 its unhandsomeness, to compensate its unreason- 
 ableness, and harmonize and temper its energies, 
 might be pronounced the best blood of the world. 
 
 Such accession it received in passing through four 
 generations of Episcopal clergymen, under fine cul- 
 ture and in the purer atmosjjhere of the Church. 
 The first of these was Samuel Seabury, of Groton. 
 He was a student in Yale College in the memorable 
 year when its president, Cutler, and its professors. 
 Brown and Johnson, of Stratford, abandoned the 
 Congregation alist body, and gave in their adherence 
 to the Church. In consequence of the troubles he 
 passed to Harvard University, graduating in 1724. 
 Then he became a licensed preacher among his kin- 
 dred at Groton. But his doubts about the ministry 
 and the Church were on his mind, and they grew. 
 He could not rest so. At last he went to England 
 for Holy Orders, returning a Priest, and early in 
 1729 is reported as ^^latelj gone over^^ and " sent to 
 New London." For fourteen years he was a mis- 
 sionary of the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in New London, and the first rector of St. 
 James' Church. His salary was ^60 a year from 
 June 24, 1730. Then, from 1743, ^^ resided twenty
 
 years in Hempstead, Long Island, and its vicinity, 
 under similar arrangements, officiating at Oyster 
 Bay and Huntington, and parts adjoining, during 
 that time baptizing 1,071. In both stations he 
 visited actively around, reports at times " great suc- 
 cess," and the congregations crowded in good weather. 
 In further proof of his efficiency, he writes that in 
 1/56, at the request of the people of Dutchess 
 County, eighty miles from Hempstead, he made them 
 a visit and stayed six days, and preached four times 
 to large congregations, " in consideration of all 
 which tlie Society hath directed him to take these 
 poor people under his care, and do them what good 
 services he can, consistent, at present, with his more 
 peculiar cure." He occasionally officiated at Fish- 
 kill. He was known as a solid, well-balanced man, 
 faithful, active and acceptable as a minister of 
 Christ. He died in 1763. These records show that 
 he was of the true character, and worthy to head 
 the list. As Dr. Chandler happily expresses it, " a 
 character that is held in high esteem, and an exam- 
 ple that is worthy of all imitation." 
 
 His son, Samuel Seabury, was born in Groton, 
 Connecticut, November 30, 1729. He was 13 
 years old when his father removed from New Lon- 
 don to Hempstead, commsnded by Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson, of Stratford, as " a solid, sensible, virtuous
 
 yoiitli, who in good time may do good service." He 
 graduated at Yale in 1 748 with honor, and King's 
 College made him an A. M. in 176,1, thirteen years 
 later. In i75i, after having served as a Catechist 
 and lay reader in Huntington, Long Island, he went 
 to Scotland to complete his study of medicine. 
 There his attention was soon fixed constant upon 
 theology, and he was ordained in 1753 Deacon, by 
 John. Bishop of Lincoln, and Priest by the Bishop 
 of Carlisle, each acting for the Bishop of London. 
 Returning, he laboured under the auspices of the 
 Society for Propagating the Gospel three years in 
 New Brunswick, New Jersey, nine years in Jamaica, 
 Long Island, and parts adjacent; then, on March i, 
 1867, at St. Peter's, Westchester, and at Eastchester 
 for ten years. A loyalist, attached to the regular 
 government, to the royal side and the one united 
 Empire, and, in consequence, suffering persecution 
 at the beginning of the Revolutionary War at his 
 home, he took refuge near the city of New York, 
 where he continued to the close of the war. In 
 1775 he had been carried prisoner to New Haven, 
 and was kept there under military guard for more 
 than a month. By 1776 they had disturbed his 
 papers, turned his Church into a hospital, and 
 burned the pews to the value of ^300, and 
 " being an obnoxious person to the rebels," after an
 
 8 
 
 edict published making it death to support the 
 King, he fled to Staten Island. The Society, '' sen- 
 sible of his great worth," signified their ready com- 
 pliance. On December i5, 1777, he was made 
 D. D., of Oxford University. During these troubles 
 of the war he attended to his duties as missionary 
 at Staten Island, acted as chaplain to the King's 
 American regiment, to which he was appointed 
 by Sir Henry Clinton, February 14, 1778, and 
 helped to support himself by occasional practice 
 as a physician. At the very beginning he had 
 written " several seasonable pieces under the as- 
 sumed character of a farmer, popularly attributed 
 to another.''* Though unhesitating and decided, 
 he was never ofl:ensive, and cheerfully submitted at 
 the end. When peace was made, the Connecticut 
 Clergy, in concert with those of New York, re- 
 solved to make an efl:brt to obtain the Episcopate ; 
 and he was unanimously chosen the Bishop of Con- 
 necticut on the 2ist of April, 1783. He reached 
 England on the 7th of July, 1783. But there were 
 obstructions and delays: some from the necessity 
 of the case, as the oath of allegiance and obedience, 
 others from prejudices and unwillingness to move. 
 
 After a weary delay of more than a year, he 
 turned to the Scottish Church, which was not thus 
 
 * Boucher's Sermons on the American Revolution.
 
 9 
 
 embarrassed, and with which he had heconie fami- 
 liar and to which attached on his former visit ; and 
 he was consecrated Bishop at Aberdeen, on Novem- 
 ber 14, 1784; being formally recognized on his 
 return to America, at a S2:)ecial Convention in Con- 
 necticut, on the 3d of August, 1785. Philo Shelton, 
 (oh, name fortunate for the " daily beauty of his 
 life" and the nobility of his oifspring!) with three 
 others, were ordained by him at this time, his first 
 ordination. In all, he ordained 48 Deacons and 43 
 Priests, of whom the Rev. Daniel Burhans was the 
 latest survivor, dying at the age of 9 1 . The Bishop 
 elected Rector of St. James' Church, New London, 
 which had been burned at Arnold's invasion, re- 
 turned to the home of his childhood, officiating in 
 the Court House ; celebrating, however, the Holy 
 Eucharist in the large parlour of his parsonage on 
 every Sunday. In 1790 he also took charge of the 
 Diocese of Rhode Island. In 1789, on the 2d of 
 October, the Constitution of the Ej^iscopal Church 
 was adopted. Connecticut was brought in; and 
 Bishop Seabury was the first President-Bishop of 
 the Church of the United States.* What a cham- 
 pion Bishop he was, how able, how earnest, how 
 noble, of commanding presence and character, what 
 an admirable theologian and discourser he was, how 
 
 Journal Qenl. Conv.. 1789. Orig. ed., p. 25. (Bioren, I. 93.)
 
 lO 
 
 greatly valued and beloved by all the rieli and tlie 
 poor, what a happy churchly and spiritual influence 
 lie exerted, what great strength he had and exercised 
 in all ftiithful ways, how much we owe to him, is 
 known of all men. His volumes and his other works 
 speak for him. As Dr. Boucher, an intimate friend 
 in England, writes in his volume of Sermons on the 
 American Revolution, printed in 1797, "he was a 
 man of such transcendent al)ilities as would have 
 been an ornament and a blessing to any countiy." 
 It is very evident that his fame has been ever on the 
 rise. He died of apoplexy on the 2 5th of February, 
 1796, in New London, aged 66 years, 2 months and 
 2 5 days. Interred in the public burial ground, where 
 the old gravestone still stands, the remains were re- 
 moved in 1849 to the new church and placed 
 beneath the chancel. I have seen there the costly 
 monument, and read there the fine inscription from 
 the pen of Dr. Samuel Farmar Jar vis. There also 
 I have seen the house, and was pointed to the room 
 where his grandson, Samuel Seabuey, was born. 
 
 His youngest son, Charles Seabury, was born at 
 Westchester, in the province of New York, on the 
 20th of May, 1770. After five years he was in 
 New York or its vicinity, till his father removed to 
 New London as Bishop in 1785. Having had pre- 
 l)aratory studies under excellent teachers, he com-
 
 II 
 
 pleted lii^; tlieological course under tlie immediate 
 direction of tlie Bishop, and was ordained together 
 with Dr. Burhans, June 5, 1793. ^^er engage- 
 ments at Jamaica, in ijgS he was called at the 
 death of his father to be Rector at New London. 
 He was ordained Priest hy Bishop Provoost, July 
 17, 1796. Eighteen years he resided in New 
 London, and then, in 18 14, became Rector of Caro- 
 line Church, Setauket, Long Island, adding for seve- 
 ral years Huntington, and for very many years Islip. 
 He was instituted in 18 14, under Bishop Hobart, by 
 the Rev. Seth Hart ; the Rev. Gilljert H. Sayres, of 
 Jamaica, and Evan M. Johnson, of Newtown, assist- 
 ing. He had five sons, of whom Samuel was the 
 oldest. Li 1 82 1 he married the widow of Rev. 
 Henry Moscrop, whose daughter was the wife of 
 Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk. Here he con- 
 tinued to labour with great steadfastness till he 
 died, aged 74 years, 7 months, and 9 days, on the 
 29th of December, 1844. 
 
 A l)eautiful tribute to his memory was paid 
 by his own loving Bishop. His talents were good, 
 his style easy, his power of conversation considera- 
 ble, his pastoral gift excellent. He published one 
 sermon in New London. But his strength lay not 
 here. It lay in the unconscious possession of a 
 great natural simplicity. He was as true as an
 
 12 
 
 angel, and as innocent and transparent as a child, 
 like a babe from the upper sphere, with clear and 
 pleasant eye, let down to wander a while over 
 hills and fields of earth; and in his own precious 
 sphere I guess his degree was even higher than 
 the rest in theirs. I count it a privilege that I 
 once was with him at Huntington and Coldspring, 
 rode with him at his side in his own conveyance, 
 and worshipped with him in the little Queen 
 Anne chapel, at an ordination Eucharist. He 
 ^vas succeeded in Setauket and Islip hj our ad- 
 mirable Drs. William Adams, of Nashotah, and D. 
 V. M. Johnson, of St. Mary's, Brooklyn. 
 
 But now we come to the fourth one in the line : 
 his eminent son, for whose special memory we are 
 now assembled. I felt as if I could not pass by his 
 honoured ancestors with mere allusion or bare men- 
 tion, and if I have gone too much into detail, pardon 
 me that I have erred. I feel, too, as if it might be 
 more congenial as a memorial to one who thought 
 so little of himself personally, but so much of his 
 kindred and forefathers. So I will yet venture to 
 add as another link in the line, that his son, the 
 Rev. William Jones Seabury, has succeeded his 
 father as Rector of the Church of the Annunciation, 
 himself useful in pastoral duties, honoured as an 
 intelligent theologian, instructing in the General
 
 Theological Seminary, and beloved of all ; aud lastly, 
 that a babe is born to him, and his name is Samuel 
 Seabury. May the line go on, and with all its an- 
 cient honors ! 
 
 Samuel Seabury was the eldest of five sons of 
 the Rev. Charles Seabury, and his mother, Anne 
 Saltonstall, the daughter of the Bishop's church- 
 warden, in whose house the Bishop died so suddenly. 
 He removed at the age of thirteen to Setauket, Long- 
 Island. During his residence in New London, in a 
 sphere of culture and intelligence, surrounded by 
 the elevating associations of his family position, the 
 foundation of his education must have been well 
 laid, his development auspiciously begun, and in 
 many important respects, with permanent results, 
 especially when we consider his natural turn 
 for reading and study. But when removed to the 
 quiet seclusion of Setauket, all this was reversed. 
 His father's income was exceedingly small. Though, 
 to use his own words, his father was " a man of 
 simple habits and moderate desires, living as close 
 to Nature and as far from Fancy as was at all com- 
 patible with the decencies of his position," yet it 
 was impossible for him to secure to his children 
 many advantages of education. So Samuel was 
 obliged to do his best, even for his support. He 
 made some unsuccessful essay in our Great Master's
 
 H 
 
 guild ; lie went out from home to earn his living ; 
 having employment from his uncle, Edward Sea- 
 bury, who held a position in the Custom House, 
 and among some commercial friends. Desirous to 
 prosecute his classical studies, his preparatory edu- 
 cation, and finally, his theological profession ; and 
 also to bring forward upon the same pathway a 
 brother, to whose person and interest he was most 
 devoted ; after having watched for all opportunities 
 of study, and improved them for years ; having ap- 
 plied himself resolutely to Latin and Greek at the 
 age of seventeen, and always pursuing his studies 
 with such spare time as he could find ; carrying a 
 book always with him, to be used when he had a 
 chance, he thought it best, when he reached the age 
 of twenty-one, or more, to open a school at Brook- 
 lyn, as combining more the means of support, and 
 opportunity for study. 
 
 It was at this time I first heard of him, while 
 I was a senior at Columbia College, or a student 
 of our Greneral Seminary. He had become well 
 acquainted with that great thinker and divine, 
 Dr. Henry U. Onderdonk, the Rector of St. 
 Ann's, Brooklyn, who took a great admiration 
 for him, and for whom he ever manifested a 
 peculiar esteem, often referring to him and to the 
 intercourse which he had with him, often quot. 
 
 -+
 
 i5 
 
 ing expressions and phrases of his as showing his 
 views, his mind })eing to a considerable extent 
 evidently influenced by his. I remember the 
 Rev. Evan M. Johnson coming in one day and 
 saying to us with great eagerness, " Henry Onder- 
 donk tells me he has in his j^arish a wonderful 
 young man, preparing for the ministry; why he 
 says he knows everything; he is a son of our 
 Charles Seabury, at Setauket." This, I may say, 
 was the first step toward that remarkable attach- 
 ment which these two formed for each other, a 
 friendship 
 
 "That ever did continue, lilie tiie spring, 
 Ne'er saw the fall of the leaf." * 
 
 And these first profuse expressions gathered by him 
 from so eminent a judge of character and of ability 
 as the future Bisho^^, gave me a conscious sympathy 
 and honouring recognition which I have never been 
 without. 
 
 He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Hobart, on 
 Wednesday, the 12th of April, 1826, in All Saints' 
 Church, New York, the Bev. B. T. Onderdonk 
 preaching the sermon. He was ordained Priest by 
 Bishop Hobart, on Monday, the 7th of July, 1828, 
 in St. George's Church, Hallet's Cove, now Astoria, 
 a portion previously of St. James's Parish, Newtown. 
 
 * Beaumont. 
 
 • 4,
 
 i6 
 
 After an incidental engagement at Newtown, to aid 
 his friend, the Rector, who had begun to found St. 
 John's Church, Brooklyn, and needed help for his 
 double services, he preached awhile in Jamaica and 
 Setauket, then took charge of St. John's, Hunting- 
 ton, with which all his Episcopal ancestors had been 
 connected, and after a year accepted a call to Hal- 
 let's Cove, where, under his ministry, St. George's 
 Church was separately organized, being consecrated 
 the 2ist of May, 1828. He was then invited by 
 Bishop Brownell to take a parish at Middletown, 
 but he preferred, after some time, to accept an offer 
 from Dr. Muhlenberg, to be the classical teacher in 
 his celebrated Institute at Flushing, where he con- 
 tinued for some years, during several of which he 
 resided in Flushing, and for others he visited the 
 institution two days in the week. There I often 
 met him familiarly during the fifteen months of my 
 rectorship, attending with him the Heber Mission- 
 ary Society, and the Literary Debating Society of 
 the students, amongst whom he was a great favorite, 
 and by whom he was much admired for his un- 
 questioned ability and goodness. Among the 
 young men sat, I remember, Reuben Riley, Milo 
 Mahan, and J. Loyd Breck, with a hundred others ; 
 and among the young teachers (who formed my first 
 class in theological studies) were Bishop Kerfoot
 
 17 
 
 and Drs. Diller, Van Bokkeleu, and Prof. Barton. 
 He was then quite the victim of dyspepsia. He 
 tormented himself with ascetic remedies and long, 
 fatiguing exercises, walking fifteen miles a day. He 
 grew no better. At last, in a fit of despair, he 
 abandoned all remedies, he let nature take her 
 course, he walked only as occasion required, he par- 
 took freely of what was set before him, when lo, he 
 discovered that he was well ! It was here he pub- 
 lished communications for the " Flushing Institute 
 Journal;" also, in 1831, "The Study of the Classics 
 on Christian Principles," and " The Efficacy of a 
 Mother's Prayers, illustrated in the Conversion and 
 Labors of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo," in February, 
 1833, a work of 93 pages, since reprinted and very 
 popular and useful. 
 
 It was in 1833 he was visited by a most severe 
 bereavement, by the death of his brother William. 
 With him, as he himself writes to his son, "wer« 
 connected some of my brightest anticipations, and 
 my bitterest sorrows. I never knew so clear and 
 vigorous a mind as his was, even in his youth. He 
 came from home when about sixteen, and resided 
 with me when I taught school in Brooklyn, studied 
 with me for a while, l)ut he soon got far beyond 
 me. I sent him to school in New York, where he 
 fitted for Columbia College, in which he remained
 
 i8 
 
 for more than a year, l)iit liis severe application 
 cost him his life. Had he lived, he would have 
 been a very great man.'' The son goes on to say : 
 " My father's heart was wonderfully wrapped up in 
 him ; he seems to have had no ambition for himself, 
 but he cherished bright hopes for his brother, 
 whose premature and melancholy death was a dis- 
 appointment from which he never entirely recov- 
 ered. After the lapse of thirty years' time, when 
 he spoke to me of him, he could not sj)eak without 
 emotion." I well remember to have heard from my 
 brother William, who was for more than forty years 
 Rector of Grace Church, Jamaica, of the affecting 
 passionate grief of his friend Seabury for his bro- 
 ther's death. William Seabury died February 
 20, 1833, at Flushing, tenderly nursed in Dr. 
 Muhlenberg's Institute, where he had been acting 
 as classical instructor. 
 
 . On September i, 1833, Dr. Seabury undertook 
 the important and laborious post of Editor of 
 Tlie Churchman; and continued to hold it for 
 eighteen years, in connection with other pastoral 
 and rectorial engagements, and teaching exer- 
 cises ; carrying on his instructions at Flushing, 
 and entering into temporary arrangements with 
 the Church of the Nativity, and St. Luke's, 
 and finally becoming Rector of the Church of
 
 19 
 
 the Annunciation, all in tlie city of New 
 York. 
 
 It was as editor tliat lie laid tlie foundation 
 of his great influence and fame. He seemed as 
 one made for the place, with his multitudinous 
 knowledge ever at command, his orthodox train- 
 ing, his churchly principles, his clear, manly style, 
 flowing on with deep majestic current, his high 
 and strong expression, his j)Ower of quick mas- 
 tery of a subject and of rapid composition, with 
 great command of ingenuity and address in 
 presenting any side of the subject favorably to 
 view; all this, united with high, honourable, 
 personal independence, his general pleasantness, 
 with the power of sternness and severity, when he 
 thought best to exercise them ; all these seemed to 
 make him the man for the position and the time. 
 He elevated our ideas. He made us familiar with 
 our best ages of thinkers and of writers, the scho- 
 lars of the centuries gone by. We took a pride in 
 him as a champion as he went out with such proof 
 of strength and mastery. There was confidence in 
 his very step. He understood himself, and knew 
 his ground. His was the march of a leader, and 
 there was a grandeur in his tread. I was younger 
 then and more excitable, but such were the abiding- 
 impressions upon my mind. I have lately repe-
 
 20 
 
 riised, and M'itli renewed surprise at their remark- 
 able ability, many columns of the best productions 
 of his pen. Suffice to say, lie established his repu- 
 tation by his great ability, diligence and success as 
 an editor, and thus for many years exercised an 
 influence before unequalled in the Church. 
 
 True it has been said, he knew how to be severe, 
 to use hard words, to be needlessly aggressive, 
 sometimes provoking, and to pursue his opponents 
 with unrelenting pertinacity. He was doubtless in 
 his youth a good fighter, and not averse to personal 
 antagonism. I am not one to applaud or justify 
 the faults of the great and good, to admire the 
 roughness of a Warburton, the coarseness of the 
 elegant Bishop Lowtli, or the majestic overbearing 
 pronouncements of our Horsley. Nevertheless, the 
 solemn, awful religious damnatory denunciations, 
 untrue in their instances, and intemperate in their 
 degrees, meeting the mere teasing and irritating 
 controversies of a passionate time, with the charge 
 of being an enemy of the Lord Jesus, of despising 
 and detesting the glorious Grospel of the Blessed 
 God, and that a blessed change is needed in views 
 and tastes and sympathies if he would be saved ; 
 all such charges against a brother-minister, ap- 
 proved mainly as orthodox and sound, of recognized 
 virtue, and who built all his hopes of salvation
 
 21 
 
 upon tlie same common redemption ; such lioly as. 
 sumptions are to my mind far more offensive tlian 
 common editorial ugliness, and far more to l)e 
 deplored. Just as if the Saviour were not as " pre- 
 cious " to the one as to the other ; only the one would 
 interpret the word as of infinite values, and not 
 have used the fond word " precious " in its fondest 
 way. So, in the controversies of the present day, 
 they are false, disloyal and idolatrous on the one 
 side, and infidels and blasphemers on the other. 
 Well, I suppose it will always be so. 
 
 In apology for the editor it is to be remembered 
 that these were strong controversial years ; that the 
 severity was exercised after enduring great and long 
 abuse; that the controversies were bound up with 
 exciting j^ersonal questions; that he stood out on 
 the side of his Bishop and his Diocese. In very 
 many cases he was certainly personally released 
 from all considerations of delicacy. Sometimes, 
 too, an article must have been written in immense 
 haste, the printer's boy waiting at the door. In 
 some special instance where he had been charged 
 with an offensive word, he himself told me, that he 
 used it as important to an important argument, that 
 if it were clearly understood by the Church that 
 one of his challengers had become so nervous and 
 morbid by disease, and the other when excited was
 
 22 
 
 SO constitutionally irritable as to be intractable, 
 tlien they would lose weight in this controversy, in 
 which their real virtues and the merit of their long 
 pastoral lal;)ors and earnest lives constituted the 
 chief practical difficulty to be overcome. It was 
 with him a considered and measured phrase. If on 
 occasion he was severe, he was in general courteous 
 and even indulgent. Frequently he commended 
 his moderation by what he withheld, and refrained 
 when he had his opponent at his mercy. 
 
 But I have another principle hj which I judge 
 such questions, " For as the man is, so is his 
 strength." A strong man must do things strongly. 
 His very breathing is strong. Like that grand old 
 moralist. Dr. Samuel Johnson, whom I thought he 
 in several points resembled, when he spoke he 
 spoke ; he never whispered. What ! tame down a 
 magnificent Horsley and a Ravenscroft, and a Tyng 
 and a Philander Chase, to the gentle breathing of a 
 Bishop Benjamin Moore, or a dear saintly Bird 
 Wilson! Who was it who said, "Very few and 
 small erroi's, but very few and small doings." 
 " Parum erraturus sed pauca facturus.^'' It were 
 well worth the weighing of our charitable judg- 
 ment to consider that the strong nature, acting 
 according to the constitution God has given it, has 
 its virtues and has its faults, with strengths propor-
 
 ^6 
 
 tionate. Wliat is somewhat remarkable, it is the 
 slower, the tamer and gentler who go in for the 
 strong; and it is the stronger brethren who them- 
 selves constantly offend in similar ways, ^vho are 
 less willing to excuse. Bnt who, stirred by the 
 eloquent and superb expressiveness of the greater 
 mind, would like to abate their robust outspoken 
 words into the commonplaces of the average man ? 
 An editor handles so many hundred discussions, 
 that controversies smaller and greater incessantly 
 arise. I cannot allude even to them. Only I 
 select two in which our Seminary was particularly 
 interested. One year there was an overflow of 
 feeling in the whole Church on the subject of 
 Foreign Missions, and the feeling ran high both 
 among the students and the professors. Naturally 
 enough, the Cjuestion so often agitated came up, as 
 to the salvability of the heathen. Dr. Seaburt was 
 himself the instructor on the Evidences at the time, 
 though not a member of the Faculty. It was at 
 a period when many of his ablest articles were 
 written, articles very evangelical, jealous to declare 
 the lost condition and the depravity of man, and to 
 assert the necessity of believing in and of express- 
 ing the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit. He 
 considered the subtle distinctions of the New 
 School and the neology of the German school as
 
 24 
 
 undermining the foundations of botb. He particu- 
 larly came out against the idea that the God of all 
 perfection gave a mitigated law, and accepted a 
 mitigated obedience, sparing not even his own 
 favorite, Bishop Bull, in the discussion. This arti- 
 cle on the heathen was a very long, full and able 
 discussion, filling a whole side of his C%iirchman, 
 setting it in every possible light, and sustaining 
 his views by largest references. 
 
 Then a sudden alarm arose, almost a panic. " If 
 this be so, what need of missions ? " An adverse 
 paper in Philadelphia, always ungenerous to him, 
 and very lavish and unguarded in all its statements, 
 published a private letter from a professor in the 
 Seminary, expressive of discontent, and went on to 
 represent the editor as a heretic, unfaithful to the 
 very truths he valued most. It was asserted that 
 Dr. Turner, the Dean, and the Faculty in a body, 
 had judged his propositions and condemned them. 
 
 By some unfortunate misunderstanding, the Fac- 
 ulty had given no denial to the published assertion, 
 and no explanation of it, though specially appealed 
 to. So after waiting sufficiently long, it was con- 
 sidered the fact that it had thus, as had been as- 
 serted, officially interfered in pronouncing against 
 him, " as teaching rank Pelagianism and pestiferous 
 perversions of Gospel truth." It was for him and
 
 25 
 
 his diwrchman a question of life and death. There- 
 fore he writes as follows in the Churchman^ of. the 
 date of June 9th, 1838. He charged the professors 
 of the General Theological Seminary with having 
 departed from the Faith of the Holy Catholic 
 Church, these last words published against himself 
 being printed in capitals, and he threw back on them 
 the words, and pronounced that they had failed in 
 the essentials of faith, as denying the fundamental 
 doctrine of Universal Redemption, that Christ 
 Jesus made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for 
 the sins of the whole world. It turned out that the 
 statements in the accusing paper were unauthorized, 
 that the professors had only acted in their individual 
 capacities, and that with much discrimination, and 
 with no severe diiference of doctrine or opinion. 
 The tardy explanation soon reconciled matters com- 
 fortably, at least; he retained his connection witli 
 the Seminary more than a year, when he retired on 
 account of his increasing duties elsewhere, and as he 
 could now do it without any refl-ection on himself, 
 having held the office from Deceml^er, 1836, to June, 
 1838. But never did he stand up more fearlessly 
 in his own justification. He, with his approved 
 Trustee correspondence, denied that it was the 
 province of the Faculty to pass doctrinal definitions, 
 or to condemn for heresy, that only to the House
 
 26 
 
 of Bishops, and tlie House of Clerical and Lay 
 Representatives, with it assenting, did such power 
 belong ; and that the Faculty had thus overstej^ped 
 its office. As individuals, they could say what 
 they pleased ; but not officially, as a Faculty, pro- 
 nounce definitions of faith, and determinations of 
 doctrine. 
 
 The other exciting and painful controversy was 
 that which grew out of the ordination of Arthur 
 Carey. This young man was admirable for his de- 
 vout and exact life, and his mental powers and ac- 
 complishments, as gentle, too, and modest as he 
 well could be. He stood upon the same theological 
 ground as that occupied by the "Advance " School at 
 present, so largely represented in England and Ame- 
 rica, by such men, too, as the late Bishop Hamilton, 
 and Drs. Pusey and Keble, and Liddon and Benson. 
 Only there does not appear to have been any 
 special ritual development. A serious effi^rt was 
 made to prevent his ordination. The Bishop sum- 
 moned a select council of Presbj^ters to examine 
 into his case, and the decision was that he had the 
 right to be ordained. Yet even after this examina- 
 tion and verdict. Presbyters forbad it at the very 
 hour of ordination. But the Bisho]) proceeded, 
 considering the case as already adjudicated. The 
 excitement of opposition was immense. It even
 
 27 
 
 readied Archbisliop Wliately in Ireland, and parties 
 in England. Pamplilets upon pamj)lilets were mul- 
 tiplied. Dr. Seabuey, without admitting that he 
 held on all points with his young friend, yet justi- 
 fied his position in the Church, and maintained his 
 right to views which the Anglican Church had al- 
 ways comprehended. He stood out as the champion 
 of liberty, sustained herein even by the verdict so 
 honouralily and independently rendered of the Rev. 
 Dr. Tyng. He protected, by the admissions of 
 Archbishop Bramhall and other divines of the past 
 centuries, the right to the moderated views as to 
 the authority and interpretation of the thirty-nine 
 articles. He seemed to sustain his high sacramen- 
 tal views. He took a large part in the controversy 
 in the columns of his Churchman, and in the pam^ 
 phlets of the day, adopting him as his own assistant 
 in the ministry, and when he died pouring out his 
 memorial lament in the sermon known among his 
 printed publications as "The Joy of the Saints." 
 So also in the treatment of students in the Semi- 
 nary ; it was evident that he had faith in the regu- 
 lar training of the institution, and its healing and 
 corrective influences; trusting fearlessly to the re- 
 sults of instructive argument, the disentangling of 
 sophistries and the corrections of misstatements, 
 the cumulative force of wise authorities, the remo-
 
 28 
 
 val of prejudices, tlie alterative processes, and re- 
 sults the strongest in tlie world, and to the health- 
 ful growth of the young mind itself, shedding natu- 
 rally its superstitions and its crudities, and its 
 frolic or dangerous eccentricities, leaving them at 
 the end in the hands of their own spiritual father, 
 and the authorities of the Diocese ; meanwhile, all 
 treated fondly; parentally and indulgently, and all 
 assisted to the utmost of existing ability : no impe- 
 rious reproachful unwelcome, no suspicious glance 
 or unloving turn or inquisitorial summons given to 
 dreamland poet, or latitudinarian leveler, or Cole- 
 ridgean mystifier. 
 
 I need hardly add that in all the painful trials 
 of his own Bishop, he was with him, the right arm 
 of his defense, and his chief comforter till he died ; 
 closing his career with the great sermon which he 
 delivered at his funeral. 
 
 Amid all the remarkable productions of his pen 
 as the editor, still this abatement must ever be 
 made to the value of such contributions. Admire 
 them as we will, as full of life and interest, and 
 pervaded by a magnetic spirit which sparkles at 
 the touch, yet we feel that they cannot be relied 
 upon, as if they were calm and permanent studies 
 and decisions. They are not altogether safe. We 
 dare not trust the great controversialist in the
 
 29 
 
 dasli of tis editorial pen. Temptations constantly 
 arise to overpass or understate, and to slur difficul- 
 ties not yet mastered or comprehended. They par- 
 take too much the passion of the time and the 
 hurry of the occasion, and the partisanshij) of 
 the advocate. The mind is not tranquil enough to 
 decide judicially. They have their value, but as 
 the years pass by, that value is abated. We admire 
 the points, the energy, the scintillations of wit, the 
 felicity of the exj)ression, the word which tells, the 
 massive weight of the " Red Crosse Knight " in his 
 onset, the masterly movement on the field. But 
 for the permanent treasures, valuable to hand 
 down to all ages, we desiderate something of 
 another sphere. 
 
 This we have richly and abundantly in his 
 numerous, thoughtful, careful, ably prepared and 
 well-studied discourses, such as few divines have 
 written or could write ; which, cleared from local 
 and personal controversy, delivered on the most 
 important themes, presented before an intelligent 
 and appreciating audience, fell from his pen and 
 lips for long years, as the Rector of the Church 
 of the Annunciation. It was here that his re- 
 markable powers found their choicest exercise. 
 Here is a treasure of divinity; and I hesitate not 
 to affirm that his discourses selected, gathered and
 
 arranged into some systematic form, would consti- 
 tute a body of divinity, the most full and tlie 
 most valuable wliicli our American Church has 
 ever produced ; a work, too, much needed, which 
 would therefore find its place in the library shelves 
 of scholars and of pastors, useful for all time to 
 come. It would not share the fate of the volume 
 of miscellaneous sermons perishing even in its 
 beauty. I know sermons are commonplace. But 
 when a mind of uncommon power ranges over great 
 subjects or fortunate texts humanity will be the 
 gainer. What would not the English world lose if 
 Lancelot Andrews, if Jeremy Taylor, if Barrow, and 
 Clarke, and Horsley, and Bull, and Seeker, and so 
 many of the past and so many of the present 
 century had not bequeathed to us their treasures ? 
 I heard one say, after listening in this very church, 
 " It is Bishop Bull in the pulpit ! " I said to him 
 one day, just recovered from an illness, that a writer 
 knew which his best and most important discourses 
 were, and that his children might like to know it, 
 and advised him to take five as the measure of 
 excellence and mark all his sermons with a red 
 mark accordingly. He seemed struck with the 
 suggestion, but nothing ever came of it. In the 
 delivery of his sermons he was without much ges- 
 ture, except the simple natural expression of
 
 31 
 
 emphasis and force : simple but earnest, and some- 
 times intense ; always weighty and impressive. 
 
 From these remarks I slide easily to the consid- 
 eration of the theology of Dr. Seabury. I need 
 hardly say that in all his general views he stood 
 uj)on the same solid ground with Bishop Seabury, 
 with Bishoj) Hobart— orthodox, evangelical and 
 high. It has been said that he began his ministry 
 as a low churchman. There is nothing to justify 
 the assertion. His earliest impressions were from 
 the hereditary teaching of the family. His rever- 
 ence of Bishop Seabury was always very great and 
 controlling. The influence, too, of his friend and 
 pastor. Dr. Henry U. Onderdonk, was all the other 
 way. If he remained connected with the services 
 of St. Ann's, under the new pastor, the Rev. Dr. 
 Mcllvaine; even if, after his ordination, he assisted 
 there a while, it must be remembered that this 
 was his regular parish church where he habitually 
 attended. True, he had once been very resentful 
 against Bishop Hobart, on account of his Pastoral 
 Letter with regard to the Clerical Association. 
 But he lived to justify the Bishop's wisdom, and 
 to maintain that it was just here, in uncommanded 
 instances, that dutiful obedience to the Bishop 
 found its sphere. He had been very anxious to 
 to write the j^amphlet of defence, but the Associa-
 
 32 
 
 tion felt it to l)e more prudent to leave it to Dr. 
 Turner, older and cooler. But this was simply 
 a question of liberty and right, and not of doctrine 
 or church views. His chief principle and his 
 chief anxiety were Duty. He felt the force 
 of it in his inmost conscience. He very much 
 identified the Christian religion with spiritual 
 duty. He was really fond of the age which 
 we evangelical and high churchmen are so 
 fond of disparaging — the Tillotson era. The 
 Divines of that age did not renounce a single 
 redemptive doctrine. They made Christ and His 
 work the sole and sure foundation. But on the 
 foundation of sole merit and free grace, they based 
 a covenant of obedience. The strong foundation 
 was thus too largely out of sight under ground, 
 nor did they sufficiently describe it as a living 
 foundation, like the root sustaining and pervading 
 every part. Thus they were charged with trusting 
 in a legal righteousness. Conscious that they held 
 the truth as well as others, they were not moved 
 by such aspersions. Duty was still the watchword. 
 It became national. It was consecrated by the 
 teaching of earnest men, by the hero on the field of 
 battle. "The Whole Duty of Man," and Dr. Samuel 
 Clark's ten volumes of sermons, masterly, clear 
 and calm, became the household reading of religious
 
 33 
 
 families. They held firmly to the Church, its 
 orders, ordinances, sacraments, in the same way. 
 This was a recognized part of Duty. But they did 
 not grow eloquent over the nature, the beauty, and 
 the great virtue of the Church of Christ. They 
 did not magnify its covenant, or its office, neither 
 its grace, nor its means of grace, nor press details, 
 nor glorify occasions. Therefore, the higher class 
 turned upon them almost as relentlessly as the 
 other, saying that they did not do the true works, 
 nor hold the true ideas which the Catholic Church 
 of Christ had ever been zealous to maintain. So 
 they were accused of having properly neither faith 
 nor works. 
 
 Now, with much that went beyond this, result- 
 ing from some combination of all more evangelic 
 and more churchly ideas pressing in from either 
 side, yet I do think that Dr. Seabuey had a parti- 
 ality for this old-fiishioned practical era. Duty 
 to God, to man, to ourselves, was religion, and 
 under one or other head he included the distinct 
 Christian verities, sacraments, devotions, and the 
 lawful imposition of services, usages, and directions. 
 But he enriched all by the contributions of the 
 great seventeenth century and the years near it, and 
 by enlarged discoursings, wide illustrations, accu- 
 mulated thoughts, and commentaries of profound
 
 34 
 
 reasoning. Thus lie stood up a nobleman in theo- 
 logy, of the era of Duty; but at home amidst 
 the higher theologies of the past, and enriched 
 with the ideas of primitive tradition, apostolic suc- 
 cession, sacramental mystery, ministerial gifts, and 
 also of the " great Grace," and the " great Salvation," 
 all so largely presented by the century which suc- 
 ceeded. He was too independent a thinker to fall 
 strictly within the lines of measurement of class or 
 school ; no such will comprehend him. He was 
 too many-sided. 
 
 In the Kedemptive department, while he held 
 all, yet he laid it deep and brought it not out 
 caressingly upon the surface. It was the root, not 
 the tree rich and fragrant with blossoms ; and the 
 fruit was rather the gathered and cellared fi'uit, 
 stored for use ; than hanging in beauty and profu- 
 sion on the boughs, or trodden by careless feet upon 
 the ground. A perfect master of Bishop Bull, and 
 Dr. Waterland, he yet leaned to the former rather 
 than to the latter. The glorification of faith in 
 Waterland's rich evangelic page, " It cannot be for 
 nothing that St. Paul," * this was less familiar to 
 his style, than faith as all religious excellence com- 
 combined in its very principle and accepted for 
 
 * Vide Waterland's Summary View of tbe Doctrine of Justification. Works vol. 
 Ix., p. 451. Oxford, 1823.
 
 Christ's sake. Yet when lie discoursed largely and 
 generally you felt that he did justice all around, 
 and that whatever was comprehended in the reve- 
 lation of God, and in the reason and the under- 
 standing, was all put in — was all found there. 
 
 As to the style of his compositions, let me say 
 that it was a combination of strength, of easy flow 
 of language, and of simplicity. His sentences were at 
 once apprehended, and moved on with natural con- 
 secutiveness and uncommon perspicuity. He never 
 aimed at fine writing; never indulged in philoso- 
 phical phrases, obscuring the meaning or covering 
 platitudes ; in no pretty conceits or labyi'inthine sen- 
 tences ; no mystical fetches. There was no attempt 
 at brilliant irregularities, " des incongruites de bonne 
 chere, et des harharismes de hon goutj''''* all was 
 natural and manly. In fine, few have equalled him 
 in grasp of intellectual ability, in power of system- 
 atic arrangement, in clear logical argument and 
 easy forceful style. 
 
 He wrote much in many ways besides those men- 
 tioned : in the way of counsel and correspondence, 
 and of official document ; but he never laid himself 
 out to be an author. The works he published 
 were incidental, produced by the friendly request 
 or the exciting question of the hour. 
 
 * Mol'r.
 
 36 
 
 His most acceptable and popular work is " The 
 Continuity of the Churcli of England " wliicli consists 
 of two discourses delivered in the regular exercise 
 of his ministry, furnishing thus a specimen of his 
 ordinary sermons. On this subject he had written 
 and published largely as editor, reprinting whole 
 volumes of non-juror divines, furnished by his 
 friend, the Rector of St. John's, Brooklyn. He was 
 therefore well prepared to add the important docu- 
 ments, and the more special discussions in the 
 appendix and notes, thus forming a closely printed 
 octavo volume of 174 pages. The date is 1853. It 
 is an able, practical work, largely consulted and 
 highly valued. He did excellent service to the 
 cause thereby. 
 
 A later volume of considerable size is "the Cal- 
 endar," of 225 pages octavo, published in 1872. 
 He gives an account of " the changes through 
 which it has passed, of the principles on which it 
 has been conducted, of the ends which it is intended 
 to subserve." He had nearly prepared this work 
 for the press several years before, and he at last 
 determined to finish and print it. A dry subject, 
 say you, on which we do not care to be informed. 
 But read it, and you will be surprised how fall of 
 information and entertainment it is, upon a subject 
 little studied. I lent it to a young minister, who
 
 sat reading it for hours in my study, and I was 
 amused to hear him exclaim aloud every now and 
 then, " Who would have thought it ?" " What a 
 dunce I am !" as he realized that he had been igno- 
 rant all his life of certain simj^le things which were 
 here so pleasantly and easily made clear. I was 
 surprised to see how racy the pages are, rich in 
 quotation, in literary story, in copious illustration, 
 and in information rare ; the sentences clear, lively 
 and natural ; the instances telling ; dignity and 
 familiarity chastely combined. Be assured, if the 
 title has frightened any of you, and you have not 
 yet read it, you have a literary treat yet in reserve. 
 It is published by Mr. James Pott, his personal and 
 valued friend. 
 
 Another volume which he published in 1861, 319 
 pages duodecimo, was "American Slavery Justi- 
 fied." It was written with the hope and purpose 
 of setting forth eternal principles of truth, to which 
 transient circumstances and j^assions had made men 
 insensible ; and so of reconciling or moderating 
 our national antipathies and contentions. It was 
 written according to his idea and purpose, not on 
 either side of the great controversy, nor, even, of 
 social or political science, but in the interest of 
 God's revealed truth, and of constitutional law. 
 In those days of terrible excitement it was a bold
 
 and unpopular undertaking ; but lie was prepared 
 to meet tlie alienation of friends, tlie loss of im- 
 mediate moral and religious influence, and the re- 
 proaclies of the press, both on this question and on 
 the decided stand he took during the war and after 
 it. My convictions being contrary to his, I wrote 
 to him remonstrating, and reminded him of Bishop 
 Horsley's splendid utterance in the House of Lords, 
 which he himself had of old reprinted and com- 
 mended when he was editor. He acknowledged 
 that on slavery, simply as such, he had thought 
 differently ; and that a man living long often found 
 cause to correct his views. Assenting to many of 
 his statements, and regarding the condition as an 
 unfortunate one, I had long before cast my lot 
 against it as such, and as within the reach of 
 amelioration and removal. And I could not help 
 but see that the ancient Christian liturgies had 
 petitions, for those subject to it, and the recorded 
 exploits of the saints were countless in redeeming 
 them; and tliat the spirit of the gospel had its 
 deej)est current on the other side. We lost not our 
 personal attachment because here and elsewhere we 
 differed, and we all respected him greatly for his 
 independence and integrity. 
 
 His other publications, " The Supremacy and 
 Obligation of Conscience," two sermons of sixty-
 
 39 
 
 one pages octavo, were pnblislied in i860, very 
 able and discriminating, in wliicli lie expresses Ms 
 admiration of Bishop Sanderson and his admir- 
 able lectures ; whom he had ever been studious in 
 reading, and fond of commending. He published 
 also, within a few years, a particularly able and 
 satisfactory small volume upon the Blessed Mother 
 of Our Lord Ever Virgin: and a learned and elabor- 
 ate eulogium and defence of the ancient Church 
 historian Eusebius. Besides those I have men- 
 tioned incidentally along the course of the narra- 
 tive, he published several other pamphlets and 
 discourses, a comparative view of the teaching 
 of Churches on the subject of absolute decrees, 
 the position of the Church on the Atonement, on 
 Confession as held by the Anglican Churches, on 
 the salvability of the heathen, also, a Vindication 
 of the Essay ; a brief view of the origin and results 
 of Episcopacy in this country, written at the death 
 of Bishop White ; a sermon on the Kelations of the 
 Clergy and Laity which attracted considerable 
 attention : a sermon on the trial of his Bishop, with 
 another entitled "The Calumnious Ear;" and an- 
 other on the " Slanderous Tongue," and contribu- 
 tions to the series of six pamphlets called "The 
 Voice of Truth;" all of which grew out of the 
 " Bishop Onderdonk " controversy, with several
 
 40 
 
 large official documents of importance. A memoir 
 of Bishop Seabury liad been expected from his pen : 
 he had directed his studies that way, and had 
 written somewhat, but he did not live to finish his 
 work. 
 
 Having thus brought forward his writings, his 
 published discourses and style, I may as well in- 
 troduce here — perhaj)S you may think for my own 
 amusement, and partly I confess it ; but mainly as 
 having indirect influence on certain more important 
 results — the fact that he was not at all naturally 
 sensitive to the charms of music or of ritual. With 
 a fine structure of mind delicately appreciative of 
 harmony and cadence, of measure and rhythm both 
 in prose and poetry ; having written, as I was told 
 and as I know, poetic lines not to be disdained, and 
 remembering his eulogium of poetry so enthusiasti- 
 cally admired amongst the Flushing youth, yet for 
 literal music he had no turn; nor was he gratified 
 if he came in contact with ritual demonstrations be- 
 yond those to which he had always been accus- 
 tomed. Like the great Bishop Kerr Hamilton, 
 althougli he had not a cultivated ear, nor much 
 " natural inclination to music," he recognized the 
 facts of life, and so, the power of the musical pas- 
 sion and its extending influence, and endeavoured to 
 meet them by wise arrangements. He showed the
 
 41 , 
 
 same wisdom in regard to 2:>ropriety of ritual ; and 
 was strict to follow the rule " Let all things be 
 done decently and in order." But, hj natural in- 
 stinct he was not led in that direction. Even at 
 the outset, at his ordination as a deacon, Bishop 
 Hobart sent him out from the vestry to change the 
 black handkerchief for the white cravat. What 
 the age now calls bare and T)ald and cold, was to 
 his consciousness simple, chaste, and reverential. 
 In a carriage with him and the Rev. Dr. Muhlen- 
 berg, I heard him make some remarkable confession 
 on the score of music. It was his constitution. 
 God gave it to him. I would protect it in him 
 and those like him and myself, as I ^vould protect 
 the more expressive and demonstrative. Only this 
 I would have to be understood, that on such ques- 
 tions we must be ruled out of court, and our 
 notions and censures are valueless. With some, 
 mystic correspondence has a charm irresistible, as 
 with our beloved Bishop Odenheimer and our 
 lamented Mahan : with others, the music sense 
 triumphs over all, or the touch is magical, or 
 grand sentiment overrules, or dry logic reduces 
 all to its subjection : with some the scientific or 
 the mechanical is everything : or personal affection 
 leaves no room for reason : and there are those with 
 whom an authority confessed silences all opposing
 
 42 
 
 will or taste, or thought. We will generally act 
 accordmg to our instincts. And as age and circum- 
 stances increase the natural insensitive or repelling 
 instincts, the constitutional element may overbal- 
 ance the other compensating considerations; there 
 are even occasions when the old hereditary blood 
 will reassert its own ; and when we are betrayed 
 into conclusions not deemed in keeping with our 
 past. 
 
 And now, I approach a difficult sul)ject, and 
 with no slight misgivings of heart lest my own 
 interpretation Ije unfortunate, and be not welcomed 
 as sustaining his true and stately position, and yet, 
 while I intimate changes, and that in a direction 
 varying from the strong current of his life, I hesi- 
 tate, as if I do not justice to my theme. The 
 change may be merely apparent ; it may be in the 
 times, in the relations of things, in other schools 
 of thought, in my own self, and my personal views. 
 He always maintained that where he stood of old, 
 he stood now in his consistency ; and we will take 
 him at his word, and stamp his image from his life, 
 and remember him in the might and glory of his 
 manhood, so continuing to its close. 
 
 It was expected hj the Advance School tliat he, 
 the old champion of Arthur Carey, the leader of the 
 van in other times, the old admirer of Bishop
 
 W. Forbes' ^'' modestce consider ationes^'^ would even 
 lead tliem on ; and more than disappointment was 
 expressed when it was found lie went rather in 
 the oj^posite direction, especially in regard to the 
 Holy Eucharist. He had often expressed admi- 
 ration of the ability displayed by John Taylor of 
 Norwich, and he had great confidence in his favour- 
 ite, Waterland ; and they ' both wei-e accustomed to 
 justify the use of the highest terms, and yet interpret 
 them in far lower senses. This was extensively the 
 habit of a lar^-e class in our communion. Sacrifice 
 — yet every common devotion was sacrifice; the 
 Ileal j^resence — yet in the explanation showing that 
 a constructive presence was all that was intended; 
 worship — yet common reverential feeling met their 
 idea. But, in the later controversies, terms like 
 these have been pressed far more closely, and ques- 
 tions arose which were a test of one's exact posi- 
 tion. How possible to realize the "Tremendous* 
 sacrifice" of the Altar, when only the simple idea 
 of ofi:ered wishes had held possession of the thought? 
 how touch by faith? or how bow low before a con- 
 struction or a sentiment? So, his own course was 
 not an inconsistency, but a necessary result of what 
 he had really held. To judge otherwise were a 
 mispersuasion. Nor could he be justly charged 
 
 * St. Cyr. St. Chr. Bp. Benj. Moore's Catech.
 
 44 
 
 with dividing tlie natures as some said, since with 
 him there were no natures really there, but only 
 things and virtues, blessings and effects, grace and 
 glory. 
 
 If at last he was said to be in favour even of re- 
 strictive measures — he who had ever stood out for 
 a lil^eral comprehension, it was from some resent- 
 ment at the intolerance of certain of the school, as 
 itself dangerous to the liberty he would advocate. 
 I could not but lament, that in his last years, when, 
 to use his own affecting words " he began to breathe 
 at nine, and stopped breathing at three ;" when his 
 mind, with all its large, uninjured capacity, its ac- 
 quisitions, and its power of calm contemplation 
 should have been left free to expatiate in sacred 
 meditation and discourse, unbiassed, he should have 
 been pursued by circumstances of near and exciting 
 controversy bound up with personalities, with con- 
 tacts and conferences, and resultant importunities. 
 The contiguity of irritating occasions cannot reverse 
 the testimony of a life. 
 
 So the grand Mississippi courses within its com- 
 mon channel, pleasuring the banks and shores and 
 the dwellers on the main. But, on emergency, it 
 rushes down in heavier volume, discoloured with the 
 spoils of forests and fields ; it overflows, far inland, 
 all its banks; it overwhelms orchards and groves
 
 45 
 
 and liabitations, widely tearing up tlie very soil at 
 times, careering around, and returning backward on 
 its way. Yet it is the same changeless river — the 
 principles which control it are the same; from the 
 same heaven springs the flowing river in its beauty, 
 and the swelling flood in its majesty. One cause, 
 one spirit, one philosophy, one science, are there. 
 There has been no change, except to common mind, 
 of planter, on the bank ; of settler, on the soil ; of 
 newspaper reporter. Science, with its clear eye, its 
 subtle faculty, its far-reaching thought, owns no 
 change. Let this idea take absolute possession, and 
 how many apparent alterations and driftings will it 
 exj^lain and justify in highest results of logic, in 
 largest movements of religion, in devotedness to 
 truth and God. Happy the real Catholic who can 
 say truthfully, with a debater of to-day " iVc>//, 
 monsieur^ je ne suis pas un nouveau^ je suis unreve- 
 nantr Oh, why might it not be on one sacred 
 theme especially, that " its difliculties should be 
 hallowed as mysteries of faith, instead of being- 
 puzzles for intellectual speculation." * A heavenly 
 ladder reaches from heaven to earth, from earth to 
 heaven, and angels ascend and descend; and, behold, 
 the Lord stands above it. And the blessed Saviour 
 himself gave us the assurance that "the angels 
 
 * Rev. R. M. Benson on Redemption.
 
 46 
 
 of God are ascending and descending upon Him, 
 tlie Son of Man." Hear upon tliis, the comment of 
 the wise Lancelot Andrews :'^' "This is no strange 
 thing in divinity. ' Ad Christum noii ittir iiisi peQ' 
 CliH^stiim^ saith St. Augustine. Witli us, nothing 
 is more certain than that the end of pur way 
 which we come unto, is also the way itself whereby 
 we come thither; one and the same unto wdiom 
 and by whom the ascent is made." Then, on the 
 lowest round of that mysterious ladder is the Real 
 Presence, as in the middle, as at the top, where 
 beams the radiance of " the glory of God, in the 
 face of Jesus Christ." At the lowest round is 
 memory ; yet who knows not its general and ten- 
 der reverence — often its passionate expression, even 
 as we tread the " dolorosa via ;" or, as in Oriental 
 history, the sons of Hosein weep in agony over the 
 remembered sorrows of theii- martyr. Why might 
 not we take in the idea to allow and respect all, the 
 lowest and the highest, even as we allo^v difterent 
 degrees of knowledge and of Grace, seeing every one 
 of the rounds is the presence of the Son of man ? 
 With the two at Emmaus, our Lord Jesus was there 
 as well Ijefore as after his recognition; nor did he 
 disdain the true-hearted humble l)ut unrecognizing. 
 And when we give the Pure Offering unto the 
 
 * Pol. p. 555.
 
 47 
 
 Father, and our affectionate devotions gather around, 
 not all directed at the same angle, or to the same 
 very point, can we doubt but that the holy Saviour, 
 " according to the working whereby He is able even 
 to subdue all thin2:s unto Himself"' will attract, 
 and, by His Holy Spirit, collect and purify the true 
 devotions, converting that which was with us but 
 sincere affection, into worship ; re-gathering and 
 representing it in Himself unto the Father. Trust 
 we the Holy Spirit in His work. Our l)est is but 
 crude material of earth : by fire of the Purifier re- 
 fined and changed, it comes out the chrystal in its 
 beauty. He will not miss. Nor have we power 
 over the Lord's own ordinance to alter it according 
 to our wilful or imperfect ideas. It is in itself what 
 the Lord makes it; gives it, and designs it; no more 
 — no less. Meanwhile, may not the best and wisest 
 of us see 
 
 " What need there is to be reserved in speech, 
 And temper all onr thoughts with charity." * 
 
 Dr. Seaburt, after the death of the venerable Dr. 
 Turner, entered upon the duties of that department 
 at the request of the Standing Committee, on the 
 7th of January, 1862; and at the annual meeting 
 of the Trustees, on Wednesday, June 2 5, he was 
 elected the i-egular " Professor of Biblical Learning 
 
 * Wordsworth.
 
 48 
 
 and the Interpretation of Scripture " in the General 
 Theological Seminary, an office which he held to the 
 day of his death. He for a while united his duties 
 as Rector to his duties as Professor, receiving 
 no salary from the Seminary, but having only the 
 privilege of the house he occupied, until the institu- 
 tion, which ceased to pay its Professors for six years, 
 l)y some considerable sale and leasing of its lots, 
 was able to resume payment. Upon resigning the 
 Rectorshi]:) of the Church of the Annunciation, he 
 devoted himself singly to his new duty. He be- 
 came very much attached to it, and was considered 
 very successful in conducting it. He applied him- 
 self with close and exacter study to the Hebrew. 
 He would on no account l)ut al^solute disability 
 forego his duties. Even when the physician forbad 
 him to leave his own dwelling, he gathered the 
 students into his study, where, on unfolded seats, 
 they sat around him. He could not go out to them, 
 they came to him. This punctuality to his engage- 
 ments was remarkably illustrated on his return from 
 England. He wished to be present at the reopening 
 of the Seminary. But his daughter was taken 
 dangerously ill, and she could not travel. Anxi- 
 ous as he was about her health, and desirous to be 
 with his family on the return voyage, he yet left 
 them behind and crossed the ocean to be on in time.
 
 49 
 
 Shall we say that he sacrificed love and inclination 
 to duty, or, rather, that he glorified both in duty ? 
 In carrying on his particular work, he did not care 
 much for minute criticism upon the uses of the 
 single word or phrase. If he did, he was masterly 
 in the dissection. But he did not appreciate the 
 value of the process. He did not, therefore, deal so 
 much in the way of '' scholia ^^ as in the way of 
 large discourse. He went onward with the great 
 current of the thought, not staying long to examine 
 with telescopic or microscopic glass, the trees and 
 plants along the bank; the shells or pebbles upon 
 the bottom, or the shore; or analyze the chemical 
 properties of the water. The current of doctrine to 
 the outlet in the ocean of Truth — it was that which 
 had its charms for him. He could not, therefore, 
 avoid bringing in doctrinal discussions. In fact, my 
 Professorship of Systematic Divinity was what he 
 was made for; where he would have been most 
 wonderfully successful. I felt it so much, I was 
 almost ready to have proposed an exchange. Had 
 I known myself as well qualified and as acute in 
 that line as is our Professor of Church History, who 
 "surpasses," I should have done it. Assured of his 
 orthodoxy and great al>ility, I was always pleased 
 to hear that he was discussing such questions, and 
 was never jealous to keep exclusive possession of
 
 5o 
 
 my field, even where at times we differed somewhat, 
 I being more evangelical (technically), attributing 
 more to faith as an act or instrument, and he more 
 to it as a principle and habit. With him it was the 
 principle of devoutness and obedience ; with me, 
 more the expression of interior confidingness and 
 love, the soul pressing forward to Him and touch- 
 ing Him, the only Saviour, who is our life ; I 
 apportioning the privileges of the Church and 
 its covenant, to degrees of time and meas- 
 ures of forgiveness and grace, and treasures of 
 glory. 
 
 So far have I carried you along through his offi- 
 cial, literary, editorial, controversial, and theological 
 labours. But I have yet in reserve that which of 
 all was most grateful to his heart; on which he 
 expended the most of his laborious and faithful 
 years, and of his lavish affection. Need I say here^ 
 in this church of his beloved peoj^le, where, for 
 nearly twenty years, I listened to his earnest voice, 
 what that relation was. The Church of the An- 
 nunciation was organized for him in 1838, on Mon- 
 day, the 1 6th of April. He was elected the Rector 
 on the 23d of April, 1838. His services were held, 
 l)eginning on the Festival of the Annunciation, 
 March 2 5, 1838, in the building at the southwest 
 corner of Prince and Thompson streets, now the
 
 5i 
 
 Churcli of St. Ambrose, under its faithful and siic- 
 cessfal rector, the Kev. Frederic Sill. Here he 
 gathered around him a large body of intellectual 
 men, recognized as leaders in society and in the 
 Church for their own sagacity and ability. Here, 
 for more than nine years, he officiated constantly, 
 to the satisfaction of all ; during all this time ex- 
 ercising also the office of editor of the CJiurchman. 
 In August, 1847, the former structure not being of 
 sufficient size or importance, this present Church of 
 the Annunciation having been in process of erection 
 during the past two years, was occupied, and here 
 he continued, till at the date of about 1867, he 
 thought best to confine himself to the single duties 
 of his Professorship.* It was no old established 
 congregation, come down, with its inherited families 
 and accumulated wealth, and its city real estate, 
 ever rising in value ; but he made it what it was ; 
 they gathered around him. Although he had no 
 great skill in the mechanical arrangement of a 
 parish, although he was somewhat defective in 
 commonplace conversation, yet, as a kind, atten- 
 tive, intelligent visitor, he was very popular and 
 acceptable in the family circles of the plainest and 
 most cultured ; give him a subject, and his words 
 
 * He resigned his Rectorship May 4, 1868, after holding it for somewhat more 
 than thirty years.
 
 52 
 
 were ricli in wisdom ; in consultation, quite remark- 
 able; eminent for liis good judgment and kindness; 
 often, too, quite pitliy and telling in l)rief remark. 
 At Flushing we once asked him whether we should 
 take an incommodious house or be at board ; he 
 looked at us a moment and gave an answer we 
 have never forgotten, " Put your feet under your 
 own table." That was all he said, and this was 
 characteristic of his way. He was a great pastoral 
 and theological counsellor on important questions, 
 and manaared each case in hand with consummate 
 ability. His simple manner and life, his unaffected 
 kindness, and easiness of access engaged the love 
 and esteem of all. He commanded the entire re- 
 spect and confidence of all, and escaped the ordi- 
 nary censures which attend so many less simple 
 and prudent than he was. His family was affec- 
 tionate and well ordered ; he was moderate in 
 expense, and so escaped pecuniary embarrassments ; 
 and never was there a slur upon his moral char- 
 acter, on his purity, his integrity, his honour, or his 
 temperance. It was especially as a man, as a 
 friend, true, steadfast, generous ; as one so natural 
 in unaffected kindness, so considerate, so charitable 
 to those who were in need, that he secured his 
 general popular esteem. Opponents even, who had 
 a personal interview and found him so sensible and
 
 53 
 
 so obliging withal, left liim half won, and often 
 wholly reconciled. 
 
 To give a specimen of his parish, take his Re- 
 port in the Convention of 1854. He mentions his 
 Church as free from debt, except the mortgage 
 assumed by Trinity; two of his vestry contributed 
 each the large sum of $5, 000, and a third $2,000. 
 The proceeds of the Ladies' Parish Society amounted 
 to $1,221, and on one occasion the offerings at the 
 altar were $906. The other offerings for the same 
 year were $1,689. ^u addition was made to the 
 Church for the Sunday School and the Societies. 
 In fine, it was a strong, prosperous Church, till 
 troubles of civil strife and warfare came on, and 
 his own failing health interfered. And the per- 
 sonal affection of his congregation was constant 
 and extraordinary. 
 
 Here how tenderly will he be remembered ; and 
 though his body repose in Trinity Cemetery, among 
 kindred, by the side of the lamented Walton, and 
 not far from the Bishop for whom he so earnestly 
 contended, yet here in this edifice will the Monu- 
 mental Memorial, erected by loving parishioners, 
 with the inscription " He fought the good fight ; 
 he kept the faith," be a perpetual and eloquent 
 reminder. 
 
 Honours of various kinds solicited his acceptance.
 
 54 
 
 But lie did not seek, and largely declined official 
 life. From Columbia College, in 1823, lie received 
 an A. M. causa honoris. In 1837 lie received from 
 tlie same higli source the honor of D. D. He was 
 a member of the Standing Committee of the Dio- 
 cese from 1848 to 1853, when he declined a re- 
 election. It was for his clear judgment and for 
 his firmness and for his attachment to the Bishop 
 that he was thus made a part of the Ecclesiastical 
 authority during the critical period in the history 
 the Diocese; and on important occasions, and in 
 the preparation of important papers and docu- 
 ments, he was the one especially relied upon. In 
 1 85 1, the reply to the letter of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury on the subject of the third Jubilee of 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, was 
 from his pen ; as also the singularly able document, 
 entitled " The Prayer of the Diocese," both to be 
 found in the Convention Journal of 1 85 1 . Another, 
 on the subject of the renunciation of the ministry, 
 to use the language of Dr. Haight, was " of great 
 power in its analysis, in its logic, and in that 
 marvellous simplicity, and beauty, and vigour of 
 language for which he was so celebrated." This 
 was not printed. He was for years a Trustee of 
 the General Theological Seminary, a member of the 
 Society for the Promotion of Beligion and Learning,
 
 55 
 
 and of several other societies in the Church. In 
 1 852, he came within a few votes of being elected 
 Bishop (Provisional) of the Diocese. It was a 
 pleasant and honouring attention, too, when his 
 congregation and friends insisted upon a visit to 
 England, and provided the means. He enjoyed 
 this privilege with great satisfaction. I remember 
 that he was particularly gratified when invited to 
 St. Augustine's Missionary College, where he found 
 himself addressed with formal welcome, and in 
 Latin by the students, the speaker at the close 
 turning and pointing to a picture, with the words 
 " Clarum et venerahile nomenr He also turned, and 
 lo! there hung the likeness of his grandfather, the 
 Bishop. He spent also a week with the Rev. 
 Henry Caswall, Vicar of Figheldean, the Hector 
 once, and the Missionary and the Professor of Theo- 
 logy in Ohio, in Indiana, in Missouri, and Ken- 
 tucky. The last time I met my old friend was at 
 Dr. Seabury's house, and he, too, is gone, and sleeps 
 in Nashotah, near the grave of Bishop Kemper. 
 Dr. Seabury returned in improved health and 
 resumed his duties in his parish and in the Semi- 
 nary. 
 
 I hardly dare intrude upon the sacred scene of 
 the family, and the wonderful love that reigned 
 there ; where one still lingers within the precincts of
 
 ^. 
 
 56 
 
 the Seminary home, who for nineteen years made 
 his house happy, bright in hospitalities to the stu- 
 dents and parishioners, cheering him in joy and 
 health, and comforting him in sorrow and infirmity. 
 Five children survive, the son and four daughters. 
 For some few years before his death, the Doctor was 
 fre(piently visited with growing infirmity and sick- 
 ness. His faith, submission, and patience were ex- 
 emplary. He continued to study, and even to work, 
 where few others would have ventured upon exer- 
 tion. During the Seminary vacation, he had sought 
 country air at the residence of his attached and 
 generous relative, Mrs. William Starr Miller, near' 
 Khinebeck. The week before his death he seemed 
 to enjoy the scene at his daughter's, at Piermont. 
 But even under country air, and vacation rest, he 
 had not rallied ; and when he reached the Seminary, 
 he presently, after a few days of very great pros- 
 tration, breathed his last. He died on the same 
 day with the statesman Seward, and each was in 
 his 7 2d year. It was in the General Theological 
 Seminary, in the west building, in its east end, on 
 Thursday^ October 10, A. D. 1872, that Samuel 
 Seabuey died, at half-past one, early in the morn- 
 ing. His age was 71 years, 4 months, i day. His 
 death called forth honouring resolutions and notices 
 of unusual number, character and beauty. After
 
 57 
 
 funeral services in the Churcli of the Annunciation, 
 lie was buried on October 14, in Trinity Ceme- 
 tery. 
 
 " He was a burning and a shining light, and ye 
 were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." 
 
 When shall we look upon his like again ?
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Action of the Clergy. 
 
 A number of the Clergy of New York City and the 
 vicinity assembled in accordance with the call of the Bishop 
 of New York, on Wednesday, October i6, at 4 P. M., to 
 take action in reference to the decease of the late Rev. 
 Samuel Seabury, D. D., Professor of Biblical Learning and 
 Interpretation of Scripture in the General Theological 
 Seminary. 
 
 The Bishop of New York presided, and the Rev. Dr. 
 Seymour was appointed Secretary. 
 
 On motion of the Rev. Professor Eigenbrodt, a committee 
 of five was nominated by tlie Chair to prepare a suitable 
 minute, expressive of the sense of the meeting in the great 
 loss sustained by the Church on Earth in the death of the 
 late Rev. Dr. Seabury. 
 
 The Chairman named as such committee, the Rev. Drs. 
 Price, Beach, Tuttle, Geer and Eaton. After a brief inter- 
 val the committee reported the following minute, whicli 
 was on motion unanimously adopted and approved, and a
 
 6o 
 
 copy duly signed directed to be sent to the family of the late 
 Dr. Seabury, and to be published in the Church papers : 
 
 We, the clergy of New York, here assembled, admonished 
 and stricken by the hand of God, and bowing in humble sub- 
 mission to His will, desire to place on record these few 
 words in memory of our brother Samuel Seabury, Doctor of 
 Divinity, whose soul departed to its rest and joy in Paradise 
 last Thursday. We feel, of course, that no brief minute, 
 such as this must be, can express in any adequate degree the 
 greatness of the bereavement which the Church is called to 
 sustain, in the loss from her service here on earth, of this 
 eminent presbyter, scholar and teacher. For many years 
 his name has been illustrious among lier distinguished sons, 
 and we must all acknowledge that it would be difficult, if 
 not impossible, to supply his place with one so profoundly 
 learned and so capable of making his knowledge useful. 
 And, indeed, this must be recognized as principal among 
 those excellences which made the pen of this great theolo- 
 gian so powerful. To make his learning useful, to employ 
 it in questions of practical moment, and render it manifestly 
 subservient to the cause of truth, was always his aim and 
 direct endeavour. In his writings we never find it mixed 
 with curious speculations, or the vagaries of undisciplined 
 mind. 
 
 Dr. Seabury had a profound reverence for truth ; and the 
 testimony of antiquity concerning the doctrine, discipline, 
 and worship of the Church, was to him a supreme rule for 
 decision in all ecclesiastical issues. He was pre-eminently a 
 sound Churchman, and as such had stood forward in his day, 
 and served in the cause against extremes on both sides, with 
 a vigour of intellect, a dauntlessness of courage, and an inde- 
 pendence of spirit which few have ever equalled. Wliat he 
 believed, that he spoke. Whatever might be thought of his 
 views, no man could ever accuse him of hypocrisy or dissirau-
 
 6i 
 
 lation. As a thinker, he was remarkable for depth and 
 thoroughness ; as a writer, for simplicity and clearness ; as a 
 preacher, for solidity and plainness. Those who have looked 
 up to him as their teacher in the General Theological Semi- 
 nary, though they have known him for the most part in 
 declining years and broken health, may well feel that his 
 place can hardly be supplied with a ripeness of scholarship, 
 a breadth of mind, and an aptness to teach, equal to his. 
 They will feel, too, as all who knew him will feel, that they 
 have lost a most kind and sympathizing friend. For, 
 although it was not in the nature of this eminent man to 
 make loud professions, or great demonstrations, yet he was 
 in truth most tender and affectionate. There was about his 
 whole character a singular gentleness, modesty, and sim- 
 plicity, as any one who knew him at all will testify. They 
 who most intimately knew him will assure us of their belief 
 that in his spirit there was no guile. He loved justice and 
 fair dealing, and was apt to take the part of the accused, 
 and if this sometimes brought him into sharp controversies, 
 they who were best acquainted with the feelings and dispo- 
 sitions of his heart, knew that enmity and bitterness never 
 found lodgment there. If God shall grant to us grace, to be 
 as free from malice, and as full of charity as he was, it will 
 be well with us at the last. Nor in this alone has this de- 
 voted servant of Christ set before us a good example. For 
 several years before his death, he was a sufferer under the 
 pains and trials of a wasting, and at times distressing dis- 
 ease ; and never was sickness borne with a calmer fortitude, 
 or a more uncomplaining submission. He knew that he had 
 not long to live, and he endured the burden of his feebleness 
 and decay with a meekness of resignation and pcacefulness 
 of mind to the latest hour of his mortal being, which bore 
 witness that no power could move his faith, or dim the 
 brightness of his hope. He did more than endure — he 
 worked even to the end of his day, and ceased only when the
 
 62 
 
 night came in which no man can work. May that night, the 
 shades of which will ere long gatlier around us all, find us as 
 well prepared and as worthy to rest from our labours as was 
 this, our dear departed brotlier, over whose grave, not only 
 we in this city, and in this diocese, but all in the Church 
 tliroughout this land, have reason to mourn. 
 Signed, 
 
 JOSEPH H. PRICE, 
 
 ALFRED B. BEACH, 
 
 ISAAC H. TUTTLE, !^ Committee. 
 
 GEORGE JARVIS GEER, 
 
 THEODORE A. EATON, 
 
 Exceedingly appropriate and interesting remarks recalling 
 reminiscences of the deceased were made by the Bishop, and 
 the Rev. Drs. S. R. Johnson, Montgomery, Van Kleeck, 
 Gallaudet, Tuttle, and Geer. 
 
 On motion of the Rev. Dr. Van Kleeck, the Bishop was 
 requested to take order for the preparation and delivery of 
 a Memorial Sermon of the late Rev. Dr. Seabury. 
 
 The Bishop appointed as the preacher the Rev. Dr. Samuel 
 R. Johnson. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Faculty 
 of tlie General Tlieohnjical Seminary. 
 
 Faculty Room, Oct. 12, 1872. 
 
 An all-wise Providence having taken out of this world 
 the soul of their deceased brother, tlie Rev. Samuel Sea- 
 bury, Doctor in Divinity, and Professor of Biblical Learn- 
 ing and tlie Literpretation of Scripture in this Institution, 
 the* undersigned, his brethren in the ministry, and his col-
 
 63 
 
 leagues in the Faculty, have met together to express their 
 appreciation of his virtues, their sense of his loss, and the 
 value of his services to the Church of God. 
 
 The inheritor of a great name, Dr. Seabury fully main- 
 tained its eminence in his own person. From early years he 
 gave promise of the success of his late life. Possessed of a 
 mind clear, profound, logical ; of deep and precise learning ; 
 of untiring industry ; and of fidelity to every cause he 
 espoused, and to every individual to whom he professed 
 attachment, he filled successfully, with credit to himself and 
 great benefit to the Church, the office of Editor of the most 
 influential paper of the Church in its day, of Pastor of one 
 of our largest city Churches, and of Professor of the Exe- 
 gesis of Scripture in our General Theological Seminary. 
 
 In all these he stood out prominently from the ordinary 
 line of men. None who remember his articles in the New 
 York Churchman, in the da}' of his power and their wide- 
 spread influence, but will accord to him the honor of being 
 the ablest controversialist of the Church in this country. 
 The manliness and independence of his course, in an unpopu- 
 lar cause, won for him also great respect. Not less did he 
 distinguish himself in the pulpit, where originality, freshness, 
 and vigour were the characteristics of his address. 
 
 But perhaps his highest distinction was attained during 
 his long service as a Professor in this Institution. Here his 
 was ever a leading mind. His clear and acute intellect ; his 
 ripe scholarship, especially in the department in which he 
 taught, united with his general soundness in the theology of 
 the Church, were largely instrumental in sending forth, year 
 after year, a well-trained body of men into the Christian 
 Ministry. By those thus trained by him his memory will 
 long be venerated and his instructions remembered. Cer- 
 tain books also, and tracts put forth by him, especially his 
 work on the " Continuity of the Church of England," dis- 
 played his peculiar talent, and will doubtless live after him.
 
 64 
 
 As to the virtues and graces which adorned his life, much 
 might be said. In many respects, a child-like simplicity- 
 marked his character, whilst an uniform courtesy that seemed 
 like the relic of a former generation, endeared him to all 
 with whom he held intercourse. 
 
 Of his piety it is needless to speak : simple and solid, but 
 ever seeking the shade, it was best seen in those charitable 
 words and deeds that so eminently characterized the man. 
 It is in view of these qualities that the undersigned feel so 
 deeply his loss, sympathize so sincerely with his family in 
 their bereavement, and deplore for the Church of God an 
 eminent servant whose work on earth is thus abruptly 
 brought to a close. 
 
 JOHN MURRAY FORBES, 
 
 Dean. 
 
 WILLIAM E. EIGENBRODT, 
 
 Professor of Pastoral Theology. 
 GEORGE F. SEYMOUR, 
 
 Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 
 SAMUEL BUEL, 
 
 Professor of Systematic Divinity. 
 RANDALL C. HALL, 
 
 Professor of Hebrew. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Standing Committee of tJie 
 General Theological Seminary. 
 
 St. Paul's Chapel, Oct. 21, 1872. 
 Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God in His wise 
 Providence to take out of this world the soul of our deceased 
 brother, the Rev. Samuel Seabury, D. T)., Professor of Bib- 
 lical Learning and the Interpretation of Scripture, while we 
 bow with submission to God's holy will, we bear our hearty
 
 65 
 
 testimony to the faithfulness and efficiency with which our 
 departed brother consecrated his brilliant talents and theo- 
 logical learning to the welfare of the Seminary, and to the 
 elucidation of those Scriptures which are the sheet-anchor of 
 our faith. 
 
 His life and services were devoted to a development of the 
 great truth, that the Church is the keeper and witness of 
 Holy Writ. 
 
 Volumes might be collected which would display his 
 astute intellect and argumentative powers ; and the name 
 of Professor Samuel Seabury will ever be associated with 
 the bravo struggles of the Church on this continent, for her 
 true ascendancy and position as the pillar and ground of 
 the Truth, as well as with the noble cause of theological 
 education in our Seminary. He loved that Institution with 
 a holy passion, and, with all the embarrassment of his physi- 
 cal prostration, devoted liis best energies to the fulfilment of 
 the trust committed to his care. 
 
 To remember him, and record liis worth, is a privilege ; to 
 take to heart the lesson whicli his example illustrates, is a 
 duty : while we look up in our sorrow, and confidently trust 
 that tliis faitliful soldier and servant of the Church militant 
 has passed to liis reward of rest and joy in Paradise. 
 
 We tender to liis afflicted family our deep sympathy in 
 their bereavement, and commend them to the care of the 
 Father of mercies and God of all comfort, rejoicing Avith 
 them that our lamented brother and Professor died in the 
 communion of the Catholic Church, and the confidence of a 
 certain faith. 
 
 R. M. ABERCROMBIB, ] 
 WILLIAM F. MORGAN, V Committee. 
 ISAAC H. TUTTLE, )
 
 66 
 
 At a meeting of the Students of the General Theological 
 Seminary, on Tuesday, October 15, the following resolutions 
 were unanimously adopted : 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased our Heavenly Father, in His 
 wise Providence, to remove by death our late Professors, the 
 Rev. Francis Vinton, D. D., D. C. L., LL. D., and the Rev. 
 Samuel Seabury, D. D. ; 
 
 Resolved, That while we bow in humble submission to the 
 will of Him who doetli all things well, and heartily thank 
 Him that we have been enabled so long to reap the benefit 
 of their careful instructions and faithful ministrations, we 
 desire to express our deep sorrow that we shall henceforth 
 be deprived of them. 
 
 Resolved, That we render thanks to God for the blessed 
 examples of sincere and unaffected piety, and of deep reali- 
 zation of the solemnity and responsibility of their high office 
 as Priests in the Church of God which they presented. 
 
 Resolved, That we tender to the families of the deceased 
 the assurance of our sympathy with them in their bereave- 
 ment. 
 
 Resolved, That the Students of the General Theological 
 Seminary take immediate action to procure a fitting memo- 
 rial to the deceased. 
 
 Resolved, That copies of the foregoing resolutions be sent 
 to the families of the deceased, and that the same be pub- 
 lished in the columns of the Church Journal and of the 
 Churchman, 
 
 FREDERICK B. CARTER, 
 
 Senior Class, 
 GEORGE W. 'DOUGLAS, 
 
 Middle Class, 
 FRANK H. SMITH, 
 
 Junior Class, 
 
 Committee.
 
 -. 4- 
 
 67 
 
 Action of the Vestry of tlie Church of tJie Annunciation. 
 
 On motion of Floyd Smith, Esq., senior warden, seconded 
 by George William Wright, Esq. senior vestryman, the 
 following preamble and resolutions were adopted by the 
 Vestry of the Church of the Annunciation in this city, on 
 November 21, 1872, concerning the death of Dr. Seabury : 
 
 Whereas, The Rev. Samuel Seabury, Doctor of Divinity, 
 and Professor of Biblical Learning and Interpretation in the 
 General Theological Seminary of the United States, died at 
 his residence, in the close of that Seminary, in the city of 
 New York, on the loth day of October, 1872 ; and, whereas, 
 he was the founder, and some time Rector of this, the Church 
 of the Annunciation ; and, whereas, while we in common 
 with the Church in America acknowledge the foremost 
 position conceded to, and filled by him, as a writer, teacher, 
 and controversialist, yet adapting our action now to the pro- 
 prieties of this occasion, we limit ourselves to an expression 
 of our appreciation and affectionate recollection of that 
 phase of his character which became known to us, in the 
 special relations of pastor and flock ; and this we judge our- 
 selves more at liberty to do, as the Church has already, in 
 several of its larger representations, spoken its high estimate 
 of him as Priest and Doctor. Therefore, we 
 
 Resolve, That the ministry of Dr. Seabury, in this parish, 
 beginning in i838,,and ending by his voluntary resignation 
 in May, 1868, so that he might devote a single attention to 
 the Professor's duties, was replete with influences of a most 
 edifying and efficacious nature. As a preacher, 
 
 " Though deep, yet clear ; though tranquil, yet not dull; 
 Strong, without rage ; without o'erflowing, full ;" 
 
 rightly counting it a point of educational honour to restrain 
 and discourage all that is exaggerated, whether in language 
 or feeling, he aimed at being simply and severely true, and 
 showed the power of a master in the use of language. As
 
 68 
 
 a Churchman and Priest, obedient to authority, faithful to his 
 Bishop, uncompromising in his resistance to the notion that 
 the dogmatic area of tlie creed can be enlarged by a process 
 of accretive development, he ever insisted that the revel- 
 ation made and delivered by our Lord and His apostles 
 was final and sufficient, but that the Church itself should 
 not be imprisoned within the narrow precincts of a national 
 synagogue. As a controversialist, "he fought the good 
 fight ; he kept the faith." As a Pastor, mental development 
 was in hira the grace of a noble moral character ; his inter- 
 course with parishioners was gentle, natural, kind, and con- 
 siderate ; self-denying for principle's sake, lie gave an exam- 
 ple of patience and dignified forbearance in a wider sphere ; 
 and let it here be testified, that with an ability for satire and 
 invective conspicuous among his other intellectual qualities, 
 how very sparingly he allowed their action, those best knew, 
 who, like us, were nearest to him. 
 
 Eesolved, That we assent to the request made by 
 friends of the late Dr. Seabury, asking permission of us to 
 place a suital)le memorial in this Church, so tliat such mem- 
 orial may be the grateful work of many, rather than the 
 mere official act of this Vestry. 
 
 Action of the Standhty Coiunuttee. 
 
 This Certi/ics, Tliat on, the 8t]i day of November, A. D. 
 1872, the Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York 
 unanimously adopted the following minute respecting the 
 death of the Rev. Dr. Seabury, and ordered the same to be 
 placed upon the records of their proceedings : 
 
 THE REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D. D. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Seabury, D. D., Professor of Biblical 
 Learning and the Interpretation of Scripture in the General
 
 69 
 
 Tlieological Seminary, entered into his rest on Thursday, 
 October lo, 1872. He had been a member of the Standing 
 Committee of the Diocese of New York, dm-ing one of the 
 most critical periods in the history of the Church in this 
 Diocese, from A. D. 1848 to A. D. 1853, when he declined a 
 re-election. And this Committee feel constrained to record 
 upon their minutes their profound sense of the loss wliich 
 has fallen upon the Diocese of New York, the General 
 Theological Seminary, and the Church at large, in the death 
 of this great and venerable divine. It creates a vacancy 
 which seems irreparable. It leaves a memory which will be 
 ever dear and precious. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Seabury spent all his life, without reserve, 
 in the service of the Church, and devoted to it all his powers. 
 The priestly ancestry begun with the father of the first and 
 ever-memorable Bishop of the American Church, and continued 
 from parent to son, expanded into its full influence in that 
 large, important, varied, and conspicuous sphere of active 
 woVk, throughout which it was, during a long life, most 
 worthily represented by this its faithful and true descendant. 
 Gifted by nature with rare powers, witli perceptions large 
 and clear, and an intellect powerful and acute ; and possess- 
 ed of learning which, in other branches besides theology, 
 was vast, accurate, solid, thorough, and well digested ; he 
 was always ready to supply great principles and pertinent 
 facts, whenever needed by any question or emergency, how- 
 ever sudden or perplexing. His devotion to the Truth of 
 Revelation, and to the Apostolic Ordinances of the Church, 
 in their highest range, widest relations, and most stringent 
 claims, was constant and supreme. And his advocacy and 
 exposition of them, in language classic, terse, strong and 
 pure, when combating subtle and grievous errors, and driv- 
 ing away strange doctrine, was vigorous and unwearied. 
 Eminent for this from the first period of his ministry, he 
 especially put forth his force in this respect in the rich
 
 and ripe productions of his later years. He elevated his 
 instructions to Candidates for Orders in the General Theo- 
 logical Seminary, into the highest rank of Sacred Teaching ; 
 and commanded from the many students to whom he conse- 
 crated the best efforts of his mind and his great attainments, 
 the deepest reverence. Through the press, his clear and 
 fearless inculcation of the doctrine, discipline, and worship 
 of tlie Church, and his masterly defences of their true and 
 profoundest principles, often amidst violent opposition and 
 obloquy, were eagerly sought for ; and their power was 
 strongly felt, far and wide, among the events and by the 
 generation on wliich it fell. In those days, the minds of the 
 younger clergy of the Church were to a large extent formed 
 and moulded by him. 
 
 During the darkness wliich came upon the Diocese of New 
 York when its Bishop was disabled by a sentence believed 
 to be of doubtful validity, Dr. Seabury was summoned by 
 its Conventiou to become a member of its Standing Connnit- 
 tee, then compelled to act as Ecclesiastical Authority ; and, 
 amidst the entanglements of the anomalous and unprece- 
 dented condition of the Diocese, and the new and difficult 
 questions which harassed it, he often came to its relief with 
 liis powerful pen, and by his assertion for it of the true prin- 
 ciples of Church Polity to be maintained in its perils and 
 distress ; and so he placed it uilder obligations which should 
 not be forgotten. 
 
 As a Churchman of the age and land in which he has lived, 
 no name has been more widely and honourably known than 
 tiiatof Dr. Seabury ; no influence has been more thoroughly 
 pervading and permanent than that which was wielded by liim 
 over the minds of others ; no field in its history has been 
 more completely occupied than that which was filled with 
 his invaluable/ labours ; and no private individual has been 
 adorned with nobler qualities, or shone more brightly with 
 pure, disinterested, and exalted virtues. Afi'ectionately do
 
 71 
 
 we cherish the remembrance of the cliildlike simplicity of 
 character and life ; the tenderness of disposition and feeling : 
 the modesty, humility and singleness of spirit ; the anxious 
 consideration for the good of others rather than of himself, 
 which shed the beauty of holiness over the nice discrimi- 
 nation of the judgment, the wonderful keenness of the per- 
 ceptions, and the prompt discernment of Truth and Right, 
 in all their manifold relations, and at every crisis, which dis- 
 tinguished his massive and richly cultured intellect. We 
 sympathize with his family in a death which plunges us with 
 them into a common sorrow. We mourn over his departure 
 from us. We remember that, under all the weight of a long 
 and painful illness, he persevered to the last in his important 
 labours ; and wielded his great influence, and shone with 
 his bright example amidst the venerable age, in which he fell 
 asleep in Jesus. And for this we thank Him who " doeth 
 all things well." 
 
 (A true copy,) 
 
 WILLIAM E. EIGENBRODT, 
 Secretary of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York. 
 
 New York, November 8, 1872.
 
 
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 THE SUN, THURSDA^ 
 
 WES AT 79 YEARS 
 
 Father of Judg-e and Promi- 
 nent in Episcopal Church 
 Affairs. 
 
 Wilham Jones Seabury, D. D., one of 
 the most noted clergymen in the Epis- 
 ^opal Church, died yesterday in East- 
 hampton at the home of his son, Judge 
 Samuel Seabury. He was 79 years old 
 Ur. .Seabury was the fifth of an un- 
 broken line of five g-enerations of Epis- 
 w>pai clergymen, among whom was 
 Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first Epis- 
 copal bishop in America. He was born 
 m New York. January 25, 1837. He was 
 g-raduated from Columbia University in 
 1856 He studied law in the office of the 
 late .Stephen P. Nash and was admitted 
 to the New York bar in 1858 and en- 
 gaged m practice. Later he entered the 
 Creneral Theological :Seminarv, New 
 1-ork graduating in 1S66. He "received 
 the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
 Hobart College in 187'{ and from the 
 'general Theological Seminary in 1885 
 He succeeded his father, the Rev. Dr 
 Samuel Seabury, as rector of the Church 
 of the Annunciation 'in 1868 and in the 
 same year married Alice Van Wyck 
 Beare. He continued in charge of the 
 Church of the Annunciation until 1898, 
 but in 1873 was appointed professor of 
 ecclesiastical polity and law in the Gen- 
 eral Theological Seminary, which he held 
 until his death. For many years he was 
 the senior professor in service at -the in- 
 stitution. He was the author of several 
 books on ecclesiastical subjects. 
 
 He was for a long time secretarv to 
 the Protestant Episcopal Society for the 
 Promotion of Religion and Learning in 
 the State of New York, the New York 
 Protestant Episcopal School Corpora- 
 tion, including Trinity and St. Agatha's 
 schools and the Corporation for the Re- 
 lief of Widows and Orphans of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in the State 
 of New York. 
 
 He leaves two sons. Judge Seabury I 
 and AA'illiam M. Seabury, an attorney, 
 and two daughters, Mrs. Edmund W. 
 Bill of New York and Mrs. William H. 
 P. Oliver of Morristown, N. J.
 
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