Strangely enough, Ingham was accused as the chief promoter of this disgraceful tumult. In the Weekly Miscellany for June 8, 1740, the following anonymous communication, from “Yorkshire,” was inserted. It was addressed to Mr. Hooker, the editor.
“You have no doubt seen an account, in the public prints, of the riot we had in this county. It took place at Dewsbury, where Mr. Ingham has propagated Methodism. Some will have him to be the author of this insurrection, by preaching up, as he certainly did, a community of goods, as was practised by the Primitive Christians. How much he may have contributed towards raising the mob, I will not pretend to say; but what I am going to tell you of this clergyman, is matter of fact. I can prove it, and you may make what use of it you think proper. A gentleman of Leeds, who was one of Mr. Ingham’s followers, asked him what difference there was between the Church of England and his way of worship? To which Mr. Ingham replied, ‘The Church of England is the scarlet whore, prophesied of in the Revelation; and there will be no true Christianity as long as that Church subsists.’
“Your humble Servant.”[97]
In the then excited state of the country, and especially of Yorkshire, it would have been unwise for Ingham to have allowed such a publication to pass in silence. Hence, he waited upon Hooker, the editor of the Weekly Miscellany, who, says he, “received me in a genteel manner, and gave me proof that the letter of June 8th was from Yorkshire.” This is something to Mr. Hooker’s credit, especially when it is borne in mind that, at that period, he was one of Methodism’s bitterest opponents. The result of the interview was, Ingham wrote, and Hooker published the following lengthy letter:—
“London, June 14, 1740.
“Mr. Hooker,—In your paper of June 8, you inserted a letter from Yorkshire concerning me. Had I followed my own inclination, I should have taken no more notice of this than of another falsity that was printed some time ago in the News, that the woollen manufacture in Yorkshire was likely to be ruined, implying, by me; and of many more, spread up and down, by common report, which often contradict one another. But the advice of friends has prevailed with me to write this, in answer to what the author of that letter charges me with.
“The author of the letter charges me with two things: directly and indirectly:—
“As to the riot that was lately in Yorkshire, he does not say directly that I was the cause of it; but he insinuates something like it, as being the consequence of my doctrine. But if this person was not sure that I was the cause of this insurrection, it is very unbecoming, either of a Christian or a gentleman, to hint at such a thing. When the riot happened, I was absent from Dewsbury parish, at the time and several days after. I neither knew nor heard anything of it till it was over. As soon as I heard of it, I spoke against it as a very wicked thing, and of dangerous consequence. I inquired particularly whether any persons that frequented the societies were in it. I heard of three. But one of them had been turned out some weeks before for misbehaviour. The other two, I ordered to be turned out directly, and publicly disowned; though, I believe, they, as many more, were drawn to run among the rabble, through weakness and curiosity. The gentleman says, some will have me to be the author of the insurrection. It is true, they say so. And, indeed, everything that comes amiss is laid to my charge. They said I was the occasion of the wet season last summer; of the long frost in winter; of the present war; and, if it blows a storm, some or other say I am the cause of it. But this is the talk of the vulgar; men of sense know better. Does not every one know that, they say, a common report is generally false?
“But, further, to the second charge. Supposing I had preached up a community of goods, as this gentleman positively asserts (which I never did), would it thence follow, that people have a liberty to plunder; that they may take away their neighbour’s goods by force? If the one was a necessary consequence of the other, then the apostles and first Christians were much to blame in what they did. If all were real Christians, yet it would not be necessary to have a community of goods. None were obliged to it in the apostles’ days. They entered into it willingly. But in the present state of things, it would be both absurd and impracticable to attempt such a thing. What might make some people think that I maintained this doctrine, perhaps, was this. I once preached a charity sermon at Leeds, I think, from these words: ‘And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed were his own; but they had all things common.’ But I nowhere asserted therein, that we were now obliged to do as they then did. I only exhorted my hearers to imitate the good examples of the primitive Christians, and to contribute generously to the wants of their poor brethren, according to their ability. Now, if this gentleman’s mistake arose from this sermon, if he thinks it worth his while to come over to Osset, after my return into Yorkshire,—I promise to let him see the sermon, as I preached it (for it is not altered), that he may be fully satisfied; for I neither did, nor do preach up a community of goods.