In January 1743, Whitefield chaired a meeting at Plas Watford, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, attended by Rowland, Williams, Harris, John Humphreys, John Powell - afterwards of Llanmartin - and a layman called John Cennick.
A controversy on a doctrinal point "Did God die on Calvary?" raged for some time, the principal disputants being Rowlands and Harris; and in 1751 it ended in an open rupture, which threw the Connexion first into confusion and then into a state of coma.