Background
Seth Payson was born on September 30, 1758 in Walpole, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of the Rev. Phillips Payson by his second wife, Kezia (Bullen), widow of Seth Morse.
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Seth Payson was born on September 30, 1758 in Walpole, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of the Rev. Phillips Payson by his second wife, Kezia (Bullen), widow of Seth Morse.
Seth Payson entered Harvard College in 1773, where he had been preceded by his father, and by an elder brother, Phillips, and was followed by another brother, John, all of whom entered the Congregational ministry. Seth graduated from Harvard in 1777, receiving one of the highest honors in his class.
On December 4, 1782, Seth Payson was ordained pastor of the Congregational church in Rindge, New Hampshire. Here "he laboured with exemplary fidelity and zeal" until his death thirty-eight years later. As a preacher his reputation was excellent, for his "intellect was sharp and vigorous, his imagination lively, " and his ideas "admirably arranged in his own mind. " Furthermore, "he was able to communicate them to others with great clearness and force. " In the discharge of his other parish duties "his unceasing solicitude was to promote the highest interests of the people of his charge. " Throughout his long ministry he "possessed, in a high degree, the esteem and affection of his flock".
Seth Payson also interested himself in religious affairs outside his parish. Early in the nineteenth century his interest in missions led him to undertake a missionary tour of several months to the new settlements in the Province of Maine. He also served for several years as vice-president of the New Hampshire Bible Society, and was a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1815 he represented the General Association of New Hampshire in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. That his activities outside of his parish were not altogether religious, however, is evident from the fact that from 1802 to 1806 he sat in the New Hampshire Senate, and was recognized as one of its ablest members.
In June 1799 preached the annual sermon before the legislature, which was so powerful as to influence the General Court to strengthen the Sunday laws. In 1813 he was made a trustee of Dartmouth College, a position which he held until his death, taking the side of the college in the events that ultimately precipitated the famous Dartmouth College case. In addition to the publication of a number of occasional sermons he put forth in 1802 his Proofs of the Real Existence and Dangerous Tendency of Illuminism, inspired, without doubt, by the appearance in the United States of the works of Robison and Barruel, as well as by the published sermons of the Rev. Jedidiah Morse on the same subject.
In his Proofs, Payson again called attention to the danger to church and state occasioned by the rise of the Illuminati societies in Europe, and to their probable existence in America. Although a somewhat belated exposition of the subject, the work seems to have attracted considerable attention, particularly among the clergy. In 1819, after a severe attack of epilepsy, his mind gradually failed and he died on February 26, 1820.
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Although in his early religious opinions Seth Payson inclined toward Arminianism, then became eventually a decided Calvinist.
As a child, he had a feeble constitution with a tendency to epilepsy. Later he enjoyed vigorous health until within a year of his death.
His wife, whom Seth Payson married in 1782, was his cousin Grata Payson of Pomfret, Connecticut. They had two daughters and five sons, two of the latter entering the ministry, Edward, settling in Portland, Maine, and Phillips in Leominster, Massachussets.