The Funeral Sermon Of Joseph Philpot

Gospel Standard 1870:

A Sermon Preached At Croydon, On Sunday Morning, December 19, 1869, By Mr. Covell

It is well known that Mr. Philpot, during his residence at Croydon, frequently attended Mr. Covell’s ministry, and sometimes preached for him, and that he was greatly attached to Mr. Covell as a friend.

Previous to the service a prayer-meeting was held. Some time before the public service commenced, the chapel was crowded with an expectant congregation, dressed for the most part in black. The pulpit and lower desk were covered with black cloth.

Mr. Covell, on ascending the pulpit, bespoke the sympathy and prayers of those present on his behalf. He said he had lost a very dear friend, and he felt the blow acutely. He subsequently read Ps. 39, which he had also read to Mr. Philpot on the Monday before he died. The text was Zech. 11:2: “Howl, fir-tree; for the cedar is fallen.” Mr. Covell then proceeded:

The words that I have read arrested my mind as soon, as I heard that our dear friend was no more: “Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?” Death, having received his commission from the God of Heaven by the entrance of sin, walks up and down our land, laying his thousands low. He steps upon the mighty deep, enters into our ships, and lays its thousands at his feet. He steps on board our men-of-war, and strikes the hearts of oak dumb and prostrate before him. Death flies abroad to every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, and lays the king and the subject, the prince and the peasant, the wise and the ignorant, the civilized and the barbarian, the young and the old, the parent and the child, the husband and the wife, prostrate before him, and proclaims his universal power and dominion over all flesh. But there is a people that defy him by faith; and as he comes in contact with them, and they embrace him hand-to-hand, while he strikes the dart of death into their vitals, they swallow him up, and cry in sweet feeling and faith: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and, the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Dropping into the arms of the ever-blessed Son of God, who is death’s Conqueror, they sing of victory through the blood of the Lamb. Thrice blessed that man and that woman who have this, faith, and who by it can conquer death, and overcome him that hath the power of death.

If we look into the blessed Word of God, we find how many noble cedars have fallen. If we look at the cedar that God planted himself in the garden of Eden, you know how that cedar, man, spread forth his boughs in the wisdom that he had, and in the knowledge that he possessed, and how he grew up in innocency, and delighted in the Almighty. But “sin entered, and death by sin.” If we turn to Abraham, the father of the faithful, and the friend of God, yet we read that, notwithstanding all this he died in a good old age, full of riches and honours. We read of patriarchs, of the number of years they lived, as if they had outbraved death, smiled at its passing terrors, and had nothing to fear from what lay before; but after reaching hundreds of years, as many of them did, down fell the cedars. To prove that the first man is of the earth, earthy the second alone is the Lord from Heaven we find that Noah, escaping a mighty deluge which swept millions into a watery abyss, outlived the destruction; but death entered, and laid him at last amongst those who had gone before. Lot goes out from a burning city, and while thousands are consumed within its walls and by the surrounding flames, Lot escapes, and surely he might say: “The bitterness of death is past.” But death overtook him, and he was counted another of the monster’s victims. If we look at other saints of God at Moses, the meekest man upon the face of the earth, we shall find that death was too strong for him. If we look at Aaron, we shall find that death spared him not; if we look at Samson, who could take the gates of brass, and carry them to the top of a hill, and with the jaw-bone of an ass slay a thousand men, he crumbles and falls when caught in death’s grasp; Solomon, the wisest of men, can find out no pathway by which to escape it; David, the man after God’s own heart, must be numbered with the dead; Samuel, the priest of the Lord, that offered sacrifices to his name, and whom God answered according to his request, cannot silence nor evade the fierce power of death. So we find the truth of my text in these things: “Howl, fir-tree; for the cedars are fallen.”

To bring life and immortality to light, to abolish death, and him that had the power of death, we find the Son of God becoming incarnate, taking upon him the seed of Abraham: “Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same,” that he might overcome him that overcame all things, and bring life and immortality to light through the gospel; and having fulfilled the Father’s will, wrought out an everlasting righteousness, magnified the law, satisfied justice, accomplished all that was written concerning him, removing every debt, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that were against his people; and having fulfilled all, and gone to the end of the law for righteousness, now he meets death, and as he meets him, he bows his head and cries out, “It is finished!” and gives up the ghost. In doing this he gave death a blow from which he will never recover, a blow which renders him powerless to harm or hurt any of the living family of God. He turned this king of terrors and terror of kings into a kind messenger to his people, and made him a channel to bring his redeemed people home to himself, that they might lie in his bosom, and bask in his smiles, and be with him for ever. Thus he made that death which is a terror to all that are destitute of a living faith in the blessed Christ of God, become a sweet sleep to his people, whereby they may be delivered from all the fears and troubles, perplexities and distresses, of this world, and be planted in the paradise of God, to flourish, to the praise of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who brought them there.

Let us look at these cedar-trees, and how they became so; for the Scripture tells us that all men and women are by nature and practice briars and thorns. They are conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity; and then comes the question: “How can a clean thing come out of an unclean? How can a briar and a thorn become a cedar-tree, to bring forth fruit to the honour and praise of God?” While with men things are impossible, all things are possible with God; for these briars and thorns, which are useless and fruitless, and only fit for burning, God causes to show forth his praise, and to magnify the riches of his grace in their salvation and eternal joy. God saith: “I will plant in the wilderness the cedar-tree, and the shittah-tree, and the myrtle-tree, and the oil-tree. I will set in the desert the fir-tree,” &c., that men may see, know, and consider that the hand of the Lord hath done it, and his hand alone hath created it. The Holy Ghost tells us: “There is hope of a tree if it be cut down, that through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant.” When God makes these thorns and briars, cedar-trees, shittah-trees, and myrtle-trees, he cuts them down by the convicting power of his own spirit. He fulfils only what he declares by the prophet Jeremiah, that he would pull down, throw down, pluck up, and destroy, before he would build and plant. And this he does in the hearts of his elect, by the arresting of their consciences through the Spirit. He cuts down their vain hopes, sweeps away their vain confidences, pulls to pieces and destroys all their self-righteousness, and discovers to them the false foundation upon which they have been resting, and all others that pass on in confidence of what they are able to do, will find to their shame and confusion at last the human merits on which they have relied, the creature self-sufficiency and strength they supposed they possessed.

These things he cuts off and cuts down, and under the influence of his own Spirit, the man withers like grass. Our friend found it to be so, for in the midst of all his learning, the vigour of youth, high desires and expectations, and supposed power of human ability, God made him to see and feel that all flesh was as grass, and that without God he could do nothing.

Has God, my hearer, swept away all thy self-confidence? Has the axe, as the Scripture says, been laid to the root of the tree? Has the blessed Spirit swept away all the things upon which thy hope of heaven was resting, and have the life and blood of the Son of God discovered to thee the insufficiency of all thy doings, and brought thee into feeling thy own nothingness, and made thee cry from thy very heart: “God be merciful to me, a sinner?” “Save, Lord, or I perish!” Have they brought thee so to see and feel that all thy righteousness is as filthy rags, that all thy fruit must come from him, that in thy flesh dwelleth no good thing? and to feel that without him you can do nothing, and to exclaim with thy hand upon thy mouth: “Guilty, guilty!” before God. The Scripture declares every mouth shall be stopped, and all the world shall become guilty before God. This will be the case with his elect in this life. It is said: “Blessed is the man whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters. His leaf shall be green, and he shall not cease from yielding fruit.” This is one of the cedars. The Psalmist looks at this man, and, when speaking of him under the name of the godly, says: “He shall be like a tree planted by the waters, whose leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper. But the ungodly are not so.” When Balaam takes a view of God’s people, what is he obliged to acknowledge? As he looks from the eminence formed by the hills of Moab, and sees them, he cries out: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river-side, as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar-trees beside the waters.” He sees that they are a people that God has blessed; and though he has the wish and the desire to curse them, he knows that the eye of God is upon them for good, and perceiving their happy state in life, and their happy state in death, he cries out, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” But this was the desire of the slothful, which, you read, killeth him; it never draws him in love, to seek the things the righteous do.

But God, as I just now said, having cut these false ideas and practices down, and laid them prostrate, now begins to fulfil what he has said to “build and to plant.” “The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree. He shall be like a cedar in Lebanon; he shall bring forth fruit, to show that the Lord is upright.” God’s ways are contrary to ours, and his thoughts are above and beyond those of man. He has always a way of his own, and that, as I have said, is contrary to all the ways and doings of man; for he takes all these briars and thorns, and grafts them into a good olive-tree; and as he does so in order that this olive-tree may bring fruit to his name, and flourish in his courts, through the scent of water it buds. Having by his Spirit wrought a faith in the heart, whereby it is manifestly united to the blessed Christ of God, hope springs up, and that hope is in the mercy of God: “With the Lord there is mercy, and with him there is plenteous redemption.” Hope begins to move in the poor soul, and causes him to say at times, Who can tell how great is his mercy, how boundless is his love, how free is his grace, how large is his heart! and as the sweet Spirit moves and operates upon the soul, so these earnest desires and feelings run up and down in the mind, and draw it to the God of Heaven, and to the Christ of God. Thus the soul finds and feels that that hope deferred which makes the heart sick, yet when the desire comes it is a tree of life, and is a guarantee that his expectations shall not perish for ever: “Blessed is the man whose hope the Lord is.” The newly-awakened soul feels all this, and exclaims, “Lord, truly my hope is even in thee;” “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.” This hope becomes in his heart like an anchor to his soul, sure and steadfast. It enters into that within the veil. Fears assail him, doubts hang about him, misgivings, jealousies, suspicions, and failings exercise, sink, and distress him; but hope keeps his head above water. Hope thou in God!thy expectation is from him. Wait thou only upon God. Wait, I say, on the Lord.

Do you know anything of these things, my hearer? On what is thy hope founded? From what does it spring? You read of the hope of the unjust man, and what becomes of it; it perisheth. You hear of the hope of the hypocrite; it is a spider’s web; and God destroys the hope of men, and death sweeps them away at the last. O! Hast thou thy hope wrought in thee by the sweet breathings, the bedewings, and blessed influences, teachings, and incomings from the Spirit of God; whereby thou art at times enabled to say: “This is my comfort in my affliction; thy word hath quickened me?” You will want this when you come to die. All other hopes will then be swept away whenever thou art clasped in the arms of death. But this faith in God will hold thee up, and enable thee to look out for what it is in expectation, a sure reward. It is said: “The cedars of the Lord are full of sap.” The cedars of Lebanon which God hath planted have sap, and that sap is the sweet influence, the divine power, and indwelling of the blessed Spirit in the hearts of God’s elect; the cedar-trees which he hath planted in the wilderness to show forth his grace and power, and what his right hand and his holy arm can do, that, notwithstanding the coldness of their hearts, the deathly places in their souls’ feelings, their little faith, their want of love; yet they are full of sap, for there is life in their souls; according to what the Son of God has said: “I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand;” “The water that I shall give them shall be in them a well of water, springing up into everlasting life;” so they are planted by the waters, and the water of eternal life is in their souls. The Spirit of all grace is planted in their souls, and therefore they are full of sap, and because Christ loves them and lives, they shall live also. Every virtue flows from him. Their life, power, and grace flow from him.

Therefore you find that, notwithstanding the dead, dark places into which these servants of his come, notwithstanding their mourning, sighing, and deep feeling, you can see the sap in all this; for is it not manifest in their sorrow for sin, their complaining of their deadness, their mourning over their barrenness, their unfruitfulness, their shortcomings, infirmities, ignorance, carnality, and worldly-mindedness, and their longings for spirituality, and to realize more fully the power and love of God in their souls?

Do you, my hearers, know what these things mean? If you do, what an unspeakable mercy; for God declares: “This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise.” They show forth his praise by the things he works in their hearts. He separates them from the ungodly, brings them out of the world of mere professors, and makes them to be a people wondered at. So they stand out as cedars of the Lord; and not-withstanding the temptations to which they are subject, the evils of their own hearts, the many things to entice and are intended to draw them aside and to bring them back, they are firm, stable, immovable, and fixed as to the things of God, the ways of God, the truth of God, the grace of God, the Christ of God, and the Spirit of God; feeling that without him they can do nothing. They know that from him all their fruits spring; and so they live, prove, and testify that by the grace of God they are what they are.

It is said of these cedar-trees that they shall not wither. No! They are not like the hypocrite whose fruit endureth for a little while and then perisheth. O, no! But this faith that has been wrought in their hearts enables them to cleave to and abide by, follow after, and hold to the Christ of God as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the feeling and faith of their souls is: “Nothing but thy blood, O Jesus, has done it all. O! may I be found in him, not having on my own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God, even the righteousness of God by faith!” That love they have to God springs from that love which God hath shed abroad in their hearts; and so they love God with his own love. They love him for what he is, for his goodness, his mercy, his holiness, his justice, his faithfulness, his love, and his truth. They love him for what he is, and for the things which he hath wrought in them; and nothing can ever drown this love. It is not for his gifts, but they love him for himself, and he is always the same. Therefore they flourish in the courts of the Lord, bring forth fruit, and their leaf does not wither; no, nor their fruit dry up; for now abideth faith, hope, and love. These are the three graces abiding in their hearts, and so they stand in the courts of the Lord, to prove that they are the people whom he has formed for himself. And then he promises and they realize it, that “they shall not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth fruit for trouble.” They are the seed of the blessed Lord, and their offspring with them; and having built their hope and faith upon the Christ of God, upon his merits, obedience, and death, their hope centering in the God of Heaven, running through the mercy, love, and blood of his Son, and their love wrought in their heart by the blessed Spirit, having builded on these things, they shall inherit the promises. Having these things thus planted in their souls, they shall eat, and be able to say before they die, “This is my God, and I have waited for him, and now he is become my salvation. I know in whom I have believed, and that he will keep that which I have committed to him against that day.” They shall not labour in vain; but, as they have thus sown these things under the influence and power of the blessed Spirit, so they shall reap in joy, for they are the seed of the blessed God, and so they grow up in Jesus Christ in all things, and feel that he is their life, and the length of their days. They live to prove the power, the goodness, the faithfulness of God in maintaining their souls in this wilderness world through which they pass. In the mercies they receive, as well as in the acknowledgments they pay to the great Giver, God is honoured, and his name is praised.

We read also that the Lord breaketh the cedars in Lebanon the cedars of Lebanon that he hath planted; and having, as I just said, made them flourish and show forth his grace and his power, after maintaining and cherishing them for a time, he sends forth his servant Death, to fell these trees; and from this earth they are transplanted into the paradise of God, to flourish there for ever, and to sing the never-ending song of that grace, love, and mercy that brought them there: “Unto him be all the honour, the praise, and the glory.”

God grant that each of you may be as those trees which are thus transplanted from earth into heavenly soil; and may he, in his mercy, forbid that you should continue a dry tree with withered branches which are only fit for, and will at last be consumed in the fire of hell; for the tree that is not for fruit is for the fire. If it be God’s will, O that this may never be your case. Rather may you be planted in the courts of the Lord, to flourish and bring forth fruit to him, to show that the Lord is upright.

Respecting our dear departed friend, we shall see how these things that I have just hastily touched upon were set forth and manifested in him. We will look at him as a youth in college, walking its corridors with high expectations, ambitious views, pleasing prospects, learned in classic lore; and as he was delighting in these things, the blessed Spirit arrests his mind, and by the light given him he sees a people at a distance that are poor and mean, that are despised, afflicted, contemned, and reproached by the world; but he sees that they have a God. He sees there is a divine excellence, a divine beauty which they possess, as a something which is hidden from the world’s eye. The Holy Ghost gives him to see and feel that this is a true people; and in faith, in sincerity, and truth his heart cries: “This people shall be my people, and their God shall be my God;” and as he begins to step towards them, and after them, there is the hill of adversity facing him, the wind of this world’s contempt is blowing hard against him. Reproach, poverty, and disgrace press him hard, whilst the world’s flattering smiles, pleasing prospects, all lay before him to lead him aside. But with an eye of faith he sees and feels that this is the people that the Lord hath blessed, and by faith he esteems the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures this world can bestow, or the honours that his college can afford; and he steps forward after these things, casting the things he cherished before under his feet, and forth he goes in faith; and as he goes, love moves his soul, and he breaks through his fetters. He is no longer bound by the discipline of a human system, a human establishment. He casts all this behind, because he is bound upon man’s noblest errand, the preaching of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

As I have said, he was unfettered now from college discipline; from the bonds of all human systems and establishments he is free. He runs over father and mother, casts aside his fellow- collegians, tramples his classic learning under his feet, and bursts the iron gates of the college. Now his willing feet go hither and thither to preach glad tidings through the love and blood of the Son of God.

And now we begin to find how he testifies of the free sovereign grace flowing from the Father of all mercies, through the blood of his Son, to poor, ruined, wretched, and sinful men; and how he also begins to testify that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that salvation is alone in him, and that his blood alone cleanseth from all sin. He testifies to the grace and efficacy of God the Holy Ghost to open sinners’ eyes and hearts, and bring them to the feet of the blessed Son of God, who alone can save the lost. What thousands rejoiced in the message he brought them; how many blessed God for it, and found indeed a word spoken in season through him, how good it was! Nobly were the words exemplified in him: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.” Not all the winds of adversity, nor the hill of difficulty, nor the flattering smiles of men could move him; for you know what a cedar is, how firm, how stable, how fixed. Nothing could move him from testifying, from insisting, from declaring to the very last that these were the things men needed to secure their eternal happiness. Not the frowns nor the smiles of men could move him from these blessed and glorious truths. How the cedar has fallen!

Passing over the many years of his life in which he stood firm and fast in spiritual things, as his sermons will testify, for his praise is in all the churches, and as hundreds and thousands can also testify to the sincerity of his heart, the uprightness of his motives, the interest of his soul, the faith, the hope, the love, the humility, that were found in him, and at times abounded in him all these were evidences that he was united to Christ by a living faith. He brought forth fruit to the last, and flourished in the courts of his God.

So, my friends, we come to his last days. He was here this day month, when we were speaking from the words: “Happy art thou, O Israel!” When the service was over, and we parted in the chapel, as he shook hands with me he exclaimed: “Happy art thou, O Israel!” Has he not now entered into the full fruition of that happiness? All his enemies have become liars. He walks in the paths of eternal love and unmerited favour, and sings with thousands who have gone before: “Salvation to God and the Lamb!”

When I called upon him on the Tuesday, he was fearful he had taken a slight cold. I said, “Then it is vain to ask you to preach for me on the first Sabbath in the month.” He said, “We shall see about it between this and then.” When I called again, his breathing was bad, and he suffered from one of his old attacks, of a more than usually severe character. His breathing was more difficult than he had ever before experienced it. He sent word on the Monday that he should like to see me, and as I entered the room in response to this wish, and to the wish of my heart, he said, “I am very ill.” I replied, “Yes, it is so. How is your mind?” “Dark! Dead!” was the reply. Not that he had any doubts as to the reality of the work of God in his soul; not that he had any question as to what his end would be, as far as regards the reality of eternal life; but what he ever delighted in was a living, feeling religion, which combined the consolations of the spirit, the smiles of God, and the realization of the Christ of God. Not feeling these things, he brought out the expression, “I am dark! I am dead! Nothing short,” he said, “of a manifestation of Christ to my soul will do for me.” And this was the manifestation he wanted at first, the manifestation he wanted all the way through; and he must have it now; nothing but a full and enjoyed Christ will do for the living children of God. I said, “You remember the last sermon you preached at Croydon upon the open evidences and the sealed evidences. You know what the open ones are.” He answered, “It was for the truth that I came out from the Church in sincerity and faith.” Then I said, “The sealed ones.” “What thousands of prayers and tears,” he said, “have gone out of my heart to the God of Heaven.”

True religion, my hearers, is something more than a notion; something that is really known and felt. Real religion is of God; it begins, is carried on by, and will end alone in God. As I thus spoke, he said to me, “How many times, when you have been speaking of Scriptural evidences, I have felt I possessed them.” “Nor have I any doubt about it,” I said. He said, “How that hymn of Mr. Hart’s suits me: 

“‘Come needy, come guilty.

Come loathsome and bare.”‘

I replied, “God will make his Christ such a fitting one to the end of our days. We cannot do without him; and as you and I came at the first, crying, ‘Save, or we perish! Have mercy upon us! Help us!’ so it must be to the last. God will make us know our dependence on him.”

I read hymn 779 in Gadsby’s book: “Faith implanted from above,” &c. I stopped at the second verse, saying, “This line suits me, mid so it will you: “‘Happy souls that cleave to Christ.'” He looked up and smiled; for he knew it was true.

Having read Ps. 39, I offered up prayer, to which his heart responded in a degree that he could not describe. He shook me by the hand, and we parted, to see each other’s face no more in the flesh. But my loss is his gain; nor do I, desire, however deeply I may feel that loss, however painful it may be, to wish him back in this world of sin and woe.

On the Wednesday he felt better, for his chest was improved, and his breathing easier. There were great expectations that he would be restored; for, although this was a serious illness, nothing dangerous was apprehended. He refused to see a medical man from London, or from the neighbourhood, except Dr. Charles, his elder son, in whom he reposed every confidence.

On the Wednesday evening it was seen and felt that he was too much weaker. At nine o’clock he had an intermitting pulse, and by midnight it was manifest that he was dying. He knew this, for he said to his elder son, “I am dying, Charles!” And as the fact became more apparent, like the patriarch of old, he began to gather his feet up into his bed, and he cried out, “It is better to die than to live!” Death came, but its bitterness was passed. The thing that he so longed for a manifestation of Christ was now felt and realized in his soul, and he exclaimed, “I am happy!” and then, like a fond and anxious parent, he kissed his children, and the spirit of the gospel was manifested in the words he addressed to them. Having, as I observed, kissed them, he said, “Love one another. Be kind to your mother. She has been a kind, good wife to me, and a tender mother to you.” Then with words I pray the children may never forget, but that may continually ring in their ears in every crooked path they may take, and strengthen them in every good way in which they may walk, he said, “Follow on to know the Lord.” May they follow him in love, in faith, and in truth, as their father followed Christ, and then at last they may in heaven sing, “Salvation to God and the Lamb!”

Thus, in his dying testimony to the truths that he preached, he bore witness that he felt their power. There fell a cedar-tree! Those truths will do to die by, dear friends. See that you have got such testimonies, sinner. They will comfort you in life, cheer you in death, and with them you may exclaim with the departed, “It is better to die than to live!” To swim in the ocean of abounding peace, to bask in the smiles of his Christ, to rejoice in the love of his God, and to be filled with all the comforts of the Holy Ghost, was better than to live.

Then he preaches his last sermon. May we never forget it. May poor, anxious, sensible, inquiring hearts hear and listen to it, and may the blessed Spirit enable us all to hold the belief of it, and live in the faith of it. It is this: “Mighty to save!” Here are words to die with; here are words to say to the helpless and the ruined. “Mighty to save!” said our friend, and, closing his eyes, exclaimed, “Beautiful!” “Praise the Lord, O my soul!” And with this he gives up the ghost, and wings his way to the God who loved him, to the Christ who bought him, and to the Blessed Spirit who taught him, to be in heaven for ever and ever.

It is said of the cedar-tree, and the remark is true, that it leaves a sweet smell. It is firm and stable; and besides there is this fragrancy in it. If we look into the Church of God, what a scent, what a savour there is in the name of Abraham, of David, of Samuel, of Josiah, of many others. The very name of one of these is like a perfume. What a savour goes forth, and what a sweet smell arises from the names of any of God’s people. But such names as those of Canaan, Balaam, and Judas stink in their nostrils, and become loathsome to them. So with the children of God, not only with Old Testament saints, but with those of modern times. What a savour is left behind by names such as Gadsby, Warburton, Tiptaft, and now our dear friend Philpot! What a perfume such names leave! what a fragrance! As we think of them, we feel that “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.” The perfume that these have left is what the Christ of God wrought in them and accomplished by them.

And now, may you and I thus be enabled to follow them, and leave that name behind that they left; so that we through faith and patience may inherit the promises as well as those who have gone before, and feel, when we come to die, as our friend felt, that “it is better to die than to live.” So shall we breathe out our souls into the hands of the blessed Son of God, saying, “Into thy hands I can commend my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth,” and then flourish in the paradise of God to the praise of the Triune Jehovah. 

Amen.