PHILPOT, J. C. Sylvester Hassell Joseph Charles Philpot (1802-69) was descended by both parents from Huguenot or French Calvinistic Protestant families. His health was always delicate. He was a distinguished graduate and fellow of Worcester College, Oxford University. In 1827, while acting as the private tutor of the sons of a wealthy gentleman in Ireland, the Lord sent him grievous affliction, and poured upon him the Spirit of grace and supplications, taught him his sinfulness, and blessed him with a sweet hope in Christ.
Returning to Oxford, he met, though still an Episcopalian, with contempt and persecution because of his inward, spiritual religion; so he left the University, and from 1828 to 1835 he was curate of Chislehampton and Stadhampton near Oxford. At this time “it was his custom on Sunday before the morning service to spend some time in the Sunday School, teaching the children the word of God, and then walk with them to meeting, where he preached extemporaneously about an hour; after the afternoon service he again went to the school and had the children assembled all around him to hear what they remembered of the sermon, and to explain to them what they could not understand of it, and then dismissed them with prayer. His day’s labor was concluded by an exposition given on some portion of the Scriptures in his own sitting room, where often quite a goodly number of his parishioners assembled to hear him.”
During the week he was unwearied in his daily walking from house to house to read and pray with his people, and to attend to the temporal as well as spiritual needs of the poor. In a letter written the last year of his life he declares that, while thus laboring in the Episcopal “Church,” he was both a living man and a living minister, and that the Lord greatly blessed his ministry to the comfort of his people. But becoming satisfied of the great errors of the Establishment, he seceded from the “Church of England” in 1835, and left his income from the Church, and resigned his University fellowship, giving up every worldly advantage for conscience’s sake. “Like Abraham, he went forth, not knowing whither he went, but counting, with Moses, the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, and little foreseeing either what the Lord in his providence would do for him, or in his grace do by him.”
About six months afterwards he was baptized by Mr. John Warburton into the fellowship of the Strict Baptist Church at Allington. From 1838 to 1864 he was pastor of the two Strict Baptist Churches at Stamford and Oakham; and from 1849 to 1869 editor of the Gospel Standard, a very laborious and responsible position, that monthly magazine having a circulation of about 10,000 copies.
He spent an hour every morning reading his Hebrew Bible, and an hour every evening reading his Greek Testament, greatly enjoying these moments; and he appreciated the writings of John Owen (especially his voluminous Commentary on the Hebrews) and of William Huntington, particularly the latter, as the most spiritual and profitable since the close of the canon of inspiration.
Removing to Croyden on account of his failing health, he was pastor of the church there the last five years of his life. He was more of an experimental than a doctrinal preacher. Viewing religion as a human body, he considered “the doctrines of the gospel the bones, experience the flesh, and the Holy Spirit the life of both bones and flesh. The dead Calvinists,” said he, “have the bones without the flesh—a dry skeleton; the Arminians have the flesh without the bones—a shapeless and unsupported mass; and the daily experimentalists have the bones without life—a corpse. But the living family of God have bones and flesh and life; for they have truth in doctrine, truth in experience, and truth in life and power; and thus religion with them is a living body.”
He was a strong and scriptural advocate of the eternal Sonship of Christ and of the Three-Oneness of Jehovah, and of the doctrine of predestination. “I fully believe,” says he, “that the entrance of sin into the world, and of death by sin, was according to the permissive will of God, for without it it could not have entered; but not appointed by him in the same way as what is good, for such an assertion, reason how we may, would make God the author of sin. Sin is not a creature. Two things are very evident; first, that sin is a most dreadful evil, hateful to God, and calling down his displeasure and righteous punishment; and secondly, that there is no remedy for this dreadful evil, except through the incarnation and bloodshedding of the Son of God.”
In November, 1869, he was taken severely ill with bronchitis, and suffered greatly with shortness of breath and sleeplessness. All remedies failed. As he was sinking fast, his children were called round his bed about midnight, Dec. 8th. He was perfectly conscious, knowing them all, and calmly bidding them goodby. To them he said, “Love one another. Be kind to your mother; she’s been a good wife to me, and a good mother to you all. Follow on to know the Lord. Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. Better to die than to live. Mighty to save! Mighty to save!” This he repeated several times. “I die in the faith I have preached and felt. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. O, if I could depart, and be with Christ, which is far better. Praise the Lord: bless his holy name.”
Just before he departed, he looked up earnestly, then closed his eyes, and said, “Beautiful!” His wife, who was close beside him, asked, “What is beautiful?” He made no direct answer; but presently said, with his failing voice, “Praise the Lord, O my soul!” These were his last words; and soon after this he gently passed away at half-past three on the morning of Dec. 9, 1869. (Hassell’s History ppg 618-620)