Wisner, Benjamin B. A Sermon occasioned by the Death of the Hon. William Phillips, preached on the third of June, 1827, being the Sabbath after the Funeral. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, 1827. First Edition. [10461]
Brown library buckram, ex Yale Divinity School with bookplate and ink stamps, 8 1/4 x 5 1/5 inches, bound without the wrappers. 52 pp., clean. One leaf with tear in the bottom margin corner. Good. Hardcover.
A sermon on Psalm 112:4-6; Wisner gives an account of the life of Phillips in the sermon.
William Phillips (1750-1827), b. & d. at Boston, Mass. Phillips was a direct descendant of the Rev. George Phillips, whom Cotton Mather styled as "among the first saints of New England" in his Magnalia. Our Phillips was a very wealthy Boston politician, merchant and philanthropist. He was elected 12 times as lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts (1812-23). He was the first president of the Massachusetts General Hospital and was elected to the American Antiquarian Society. He was also a Deacon of the Old South Church in Boston. At the time of his death he was President of the Massachusetts Bible Society, of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, of the American Education Society, of the Foreign Mission Society of Boston and Vicinity, of the Congregational Charitable Society, of the General Hospital Corporation, of the Boston Dispensary, and of the Trustees of Phillips Academy at Andover; and honorary Vice President of several other benevolent associations in Boston. (see p. 49 of this Sermon) Phillips bequeathed large sums to Phillips (Andover) Academy and to Andover Theological Seminary in his will.
Benjamin Blydenburg Wisner, D.D. (1794-1835), born at Goshen, N.Y., educated at Princeton Theological Seminary, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at New Brunswick, N.J., and afterwards of the Old South Church in Boston. He was active in the causes of education and of missions, serving as both a traveling organizer for, and secretary of, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
