Note 53 — WHITEFIELD ORDAINED.

This was in the month of March, 1736, immediately after Whitefield's return to Oxford (Whitefield's Works, vol. i., p. 13). Charles Wesley, on his return from Georgia, writes:—1736, December 6. I waited upon good old Sir John Philips, who received me as one alive from the dead. Here I heard a most blessed account of our friends at Oxford; their increase both in zeal and number" (C. Wesley's Journal, vol. i., p. 56). Sir Thomas Philips was one of the first members of the Society in Fetter Lane ("Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon," vol. i., p. 77). He died a few weeks after Charles Wesley saw him. Hence, the following from the Gentleman's Magazine for 1737, p. 60:—Died, January 5, 1737, Sir John Philips, Bart., of Picton Castle, Pembrokeshire; uncle to Sir Robert Walpole's lady. He served in several Parliaments for Pembroke and Haverfordwest'; was one of the commissioners for building the fifty new churches; and one of the Society for the Reformation of Manners."