The history of Pembrokeshire / by the Rev. James Phillips.

  • Phillips, James.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The history of Pembrokeshire / by the Rev. James Phillips. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his housekeeper, and for a while Kezziah Wesley, John Wesley’s youngest sister, had lived with them. Like the Wesleys, he had passed through more than one phase of religious thought and experience before he embraced the doctrines known as Evangelical. Unfortunately, one result of his adhesion to Moravianism was an estrange- ment from his old Oxford friends, who themselves had been for a while connected with the Moravian Society in Fetter Lane, but had since withdrawn. His resignation of his living in 1742 moved the indignation of the Wesley brothers, and the breach became irreparable. Early next year be married and returned to Pembroke- shire, where he opened a school in Market Street, Haver- fordwest. It was just after Whitefield’s first visit, but Gambold kept aloof from the Methodists, though he fre- quently preached in the churches of the neighbourhood. He was not a popular preacher, but was greatly esteemed for his rare combination of rich scholarship with fervent, childlike piety. His stay was short—little more than eighteen months—and he was back in London before the Christmas of 1744, but it led to important results. Although the Moravian leaders would have indignantly repudiated any charge of sympathy with the views of John Wesley, yet his Arminianism was not more re- pugnant to orthodox Calvinists than was the Moravian type of theology and the Moravian ideal of the religious life. Yet contact with Moravianism in the person of its most cultured and most spiritually-minded English ex- ponent could not fail to make an impression on the more thoughtful of the Methodist workers. The school in Market Street was carried on by George Gambold, and George Gambold married the sister of John Harries of St. Kenox. His connection with the Gambold family influenced John Harries profoundly. He had early re- linquished his superintendentship of the Dungleddy dis- trict, but was still one of the leading exhorters. Gradually