After starting as an apprentice to a linen draper in Leven, and working as a clerk in Dundee, he entered the Wesleyan theological college at Hoxton, and in 1804 was appointed minister of the first Scottish Congregational chapel in Aberdeen.

In 1818 Philip joined the delegation headed by John Campbell to investigate the threatened closure of London Missionary Society's stations in South Africa and reported that the conduct of the Cape Colonists towards the indigenous people was deserving of strong reprobation.

It was the period of the agitation for the abolition of slavery in England, where Philip's charges against the colonists and the colonial government found powerful support.

[1] After the annexing of land north of the Great Kei River, Philip returned to England, in 1836, in the company of two converted Christians, Andries Stoffels, a Coloured South African, and Jan or Dyani Tzatoe (Tshatshu) a Xhosa, and James Read Sr and James Read Jr, both missionaries, who gave evidence before a parliamentary committee and aroused public opinion against the Cape government.

In 1849 Philip severed his connection with politics after the annexation of the Griqua lands and retired to the mission station at Hankey, Cape Colony, where he died in 1851.