“My sister proceeds excellently, and, by her example, provokes me to what otherwise I should not do.
“I desire you to resolve me: Will it be lawful to sell a thing above its worth, purely because the buyer hath a desire of it? Also, whether it be convenient or lawful for a Christian to dwell with a Quaker when under no necessity? Also, whether persons ought to eat, or openly declare they fast, when no necessity puts them upon it?
“Dear Sir, let me beg your earnest prayers for your unworthy, most obliged Friend and Servant,
“B. Ingham.
“My love to your good brother, etc.
“I have heard from Mr. Burton. Mr. Wogan joins with him in service to you and your brother. He expects to return by Oxford about Christmas. They were indifferently in health. If I recover my health perfectly, would you advise me to visit Mr. Clayton before I return to Oxford? Our family send their service.
“For the Rev. Mr. John Wesley,
“Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxon.”
From the above, it is quite evident that the Oxford Methodists regarded the Quakers as not Christians; yea, as people, in whose houses, it was doubtful whether Christians, except in cases of necessity, ought to dwell. This was not surprising. Sacraments, fasts, and feast days were essentials among the Oxford Methodists; among the Quakers they were utterly neglected. The religion of the Methodists, to a great extent, consisted in the observance of outward forms; the religion of the Quakers, to an equal extent, in the neglect of them.
Ingham returned to Oxford in February, 1735; and was ordained in Christ Church, by Bishop Potter, on the 1st of June following. On the day of his ordination, he preached his first sermon, his congregation consisting of the prisoners in Oxford Castle. On the 4th of the same month, he proceeded, with Mr. Gambold, to London, where he was engaged as the “reader of public prayers at Christ Church, and at St. Sepulchre’s,” Newgate Street. Ingham’s zeal was too fervent to be pent up in the reading-desks of these city churches. His age was only twenty-three; he was full of youthful buoyancy, and longed for a wider sphere of action. In Yorkshire, he had held conversational meetings in his mother’s house; but now, for the first time, he was allowed to mount the pulpit, and to preach. Christ Church and St. Sepulchre’s had other, probably older, men than himself as preachers; but, rather than be silent, away he went, on a sort of ecclesiastical itinerancy, far beyond the precincts of London proper, and preached in many of the surrounding villages, and with such singular success, that great numbers of the people were powerfully impressed, and had eternal cause to be grateful for his youthful and fervid ministry.[53]