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 On a visit to Charleston, South Carolina, in March 1740, he got into an unwise controversy with the commissary, Alexander Garden (1685–1755) [see under ], rector of St. Philip's, who preached against him, Whitefield retorting from a dissenting pulpit, and carrying the quarrel into print. He undertook to prove that Tillotson ‘knew no more about true Christianity than Mahomet,’ an expression which he fathered on Wesley, ‘if I mistake not.’ On 4 April he wrote an unavailing proposal of marriage to Elizabeth Delamotte of Blendon, Kent, sister of Charles Delamotte, Wesley's companion to Georgia (, i. 369). Revisiting Philadelphia in April, he pleaded as usual for the orphan house. Franklin, whom he employed as printer, had advised him on economic grounds to build the house at Philadelphia, and refused to contribute to the Georgia scheme. But, hearing Whitefield preach, he ‘began to soften,’ and concluded to give copper; ‘another stroke’ decided him to give silver; at the finish he ‘emptied’ his ‘pocket into the collector's dish, gold and all.’ His followers in Philadelphia founded there (1743) a presbyterian congregation. Whitefield himself projected ‘a school for negroes in Pennsylvania;’ five thousand acres of land were bought for the purpose. Seward went to England to collect funds, but the plan ended with his untimely death.

Nominally the Anglican incumbent of Savannah, Whitefield was acting in effect as a minister at large, leaving James Habersham, the schoolmaster (a layman), to read prayers and sermons in his place. He himself discarded the surplice; always prayed, as well as preached, extempore; constantly officiated in dissenting meeting-houses, and several times put Tilly, a baptist minister, into his pulpit. Visiting Charleston in July 1740, he was cited (7 July) to appear on 15 July before the commissary to answer for certain irregularities, ‘chiefly for omitting to use the form of prayers prescribed in the communion book.’ He duly appeared. Garden and four other clergymen constituted the commissary's court. Five days (on each of which Whitefield preached twice to large audiences) were spent in arguing questions of jurisdiction; Whitefield appealed to chancery, and on 19 July was bound under oath to lodge his appeal within a twelvemonth, depositing 10l. as guarantee. The appeal was duly made; but as it did not come to a hearing within a year and a day, Garden again summoned Whitefield, and, in his absence, pronounced a decree of suspension. This is said to have been the first trial in any Anglican ecclesiastical court in a British colony.

Whitefield was invited to Boston (September 1740) by Benjamin Colman, D.D. (1673–1747), of Brattle Street congregation, a correspondent of Henry Winder [q. v.], and in close alliance with English dissent. He preached against the liberalism which was making its way into Harvard College; there is no doubt that his influence did much to stem the tide of doctrinal indifference among the congregationalists of New England. He gave new vitality to the Calvinistic position, and this reacted on his own teaching. Hence Wesley's ‘free grace’ sermon (of which Wesley had sent a copy to Garden) drew from Whitefield a ‘Letter’ of remonstrance (24 Dec. 1740). Its publication (March 1741), which Charles Wesley tried to avert, made the breach between the ‘two sorts of methodists’ (, Works, viii. 335). The personal alienation was shortlived; Wesley says the trouble ‘was not merely the difference of doctrine,’ but ‘rather Mr. Whitefield's manner’ (ib. xi. 463). It must be owned that there was ‘manner’ on both sides. The followers of Wesley and Whitefield henceforth formed rival parties.

Whitefield left Charleston on 16 Jan. and reached Falmouth on 11 March 1741. From this date he ceased to write journals; but narratives of his work from his own pen were supplied in the ‘Christian History’ (1740–7), the ‘Full Account,’ 1747, 12mo, and the ‘Further Account,’ 1747, 8vo. To provide a preaching place for him while in London, his friends procured a site a little to the north of Wesley's Foundery, and erected ‘a large temporary shed’ known as the tabernacle. This was opened about the middle of April 1741, and became the headquarters of Whitefield's London work. It was replaced by a brick building on the same site, opened on 10 June 1753. The Moorfields tabernacle suggested the Norwich tabernacle, erected for James Wheatley in 1751. Whitefield's Bristol tabernacle was opened on 25 Nov. 1756.

On 10 April 1741 Ralph Erskine wrote entreating Whitefield to visit Scotland. The members of the ‘associate presbytery’ had now (1740) been formally excluded from the ministry by the general assembly. Erskine, who wished Whitefield to cast in his lot entirely with the ‘associate presbytery,’ made it a condition that he should not preach in the pulpits of their ‘persecutors.’ Against this limit Whitefield wrote frankly to Ebenezer Erskine [q. v.] as well as to Ralph, desiring to be ‘neuter as to the particular reformation of church government.’ Ebenezer