{"id":"jw/letters/1746/06-to-benjamin-ingham","corpus":"jw-letters","type":"letter","author":"john-wesley","title":"06 To Benjamin Ingham","title_alt":[],"text_basis":null,"date_composed":null,"date_precision":"unknown","date_note":null,"numbering":{"bicentennial":null,"jackson_running":null,"sugden":null},"source_edition":{"editor":null,"title":null,"edition":null,"place":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"volume":null,"pages":null,"scan_url":null,"scan_page_ids":null},"transcription":{"derived_from":null,"corrected_against_scan":false,"corrector":null,"corrected_on":null},"modernization":"none","license_text":"Public Domain Mark 1.0","license_apparatus":"CC BY 4.0","wikidata":null,"prev":null,"next":null,"part_of":"jw-letters","editorial_note":null,"source_id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham","passage_ids":["jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-000","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-001","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-002","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-003","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-004"],"word_count":1499,"themes_auto":["catholic-spirit","christology","experience","free-will","justifying-grace","means-of-grace","pneumatology","reign-of-god","scriptural-authority","universal-redemption"],"open":true,"closed_reason":null,"legacy_ids":["jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-000","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-001","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-002","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-003","jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-004"],"passages":[{"id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-000","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham","source_title":"06 To Benjamin Ingham","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":0,"text":"To Benjamin Ingham Date: September 8, 1746. MY DEAR BROTHER, On Tuesday last I light upon a letter of yours in Devonshire, which I understand has been a great traveler. I think it is the part of brotherly love to mention to you some points therein wherein I doubt whether you are not a little mistaken; if I mistake, you will set me right. You say, 1. 'First, as to stillness: The thing meant hereby is that man cannot attain to salvation by his own wisdom, strength, righteousness, goodness, merits, or works; that therefore, when he applies to God for it, he is to cast away all dependence upon everything of his own, and, trusting only to the mercy of God through the merits of Christ, in true poverty of spirit to resign himself up to the will of God, and thus quietly wait for His salvation.' I conceive this to be the first mistake. I have nothing to object to this stillness. I never did oppose this in word or deed. But this is not 'the thing meant thereby,' either by Molther, or the Moravians, or the English Brethren, at the time that I (and you at Mr. Bowers's) opposed them. 2. 'That the Brethren teach that people who are seeking after salvation are all the while to sit still and do nothing that they are not to read, hear, or pray is altogether false.' This I apprehend to be a second mistake. Whatever the Brethren do now, they did teach thus, and that explicitly, in the years 1739 and 1740. In particular, Mr. Brown, Mr. Bowers, Mr. Bell, Mr. Bray, and Mr. Simpson,John Simpson. See Journal, ii. 343, iii-243, iv. 231. then with the Moravians. Many of their words I heard with my own ears; many more I received from those who did so. And Mr. Molther himself, on December 31, 1739, said to me, in many and plain words, that the way to attain faith is 'to be still that is: 'Not to use (what we term) the means of grace; 'Not to go to church; 'Not to communicate; 'Not to fast; 'Not to use so much private prayer; 'Not to read the Scriptures; 'Not to do temporal good; and 'Not to attempt to do spiritual good.'","word_count":380,"source_url":null,"themes":["means-of-grace","justifying-grace","pneumatology"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T18:42:33.014675"},{"id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-001","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham","source_title":"06 To Benjamin Ingham","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":1,"text":"These things I myself heard him speak, as I am ready to give upon oath whenever required. You ought not, therefore, to say, 'This is altogether false,' on the bare denial of Mr. Molther or any other. 3. 'Some of Fetter Lane Society, when the difference broke out, spoke and acted very imprudently. But then, to lay the blame on the Moravian Church as if it were their fault is quite wrong.' I think so too; and have said so in my answer to Mr. Church, published some time before you sent your letter.See letter of Feb. a, 1745, sect. I. 2. If, therefore, you imagine that I lay the blame on the Moravian Church, you are under a mistake here also; or if you think I 'lay the fault of one man upon an whole community.' 4. 'As to the English that really were to blame, they confessed their faults and asked Mr. Wesley's pardon. And some of them, if I mistake not, did it with tears.' I really think you do mistake again. I remember no such thing. Fifty persons and more spoke bitter things concerning me. One or two asked my pardon for so doing, but in so slight and cursory a manner that I do not so much as know who were the men, neither the time or place where it was done so far were they from doing it with tears, or with any solemnity or earnestness at all. As for the rest, if they were ever convinced or ashamed at all, it is a secret to me to this day.","word_count":266,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","justifying-grace","universal-redemption"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T18:42:33.014825"},{"id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-002","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham","source_title":"06 To Benjamin Ingham","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":2,"text":"5. 'Therefore to publish things which ought to have been buried in eternal oblivion is what I do not like.' This whole matter of asking pardon you seem to mistake, as Count Zinzendorf did before. I wish you would consider the answer I gave him: 'They asked my pardon for using me ill. I replied, that was superfluous: I was not angry with them; but I was afraid of two things, (1) that there was error in their doctrine; (2) that there was sin (allowed) in their practice.' This was then, and is at this day, the one question between them and me. Now, this cannot be buried in oblivion. That error and sin have spread too far already; and it was my part, after private reproof had been tried again and again to no purpose, to give public warning thereof to all the world, that, if possible, they might spread no farther. 6. 'Mr. Wesley is partial throughout his Journal.' I want to know the particular instances. 'In what he mentions of me, he does not represent our conversation rightly.' Then it is the fault of my memory. But be so kind as to point out the particulars that are not rightly represented. 'He has done the cause of our Savior more mischief than any one else could have done.' Tell me how, unless you mean the Antinomian cause by the cause of our Savior. 'I have several times gone to Mr. Wesley to explain matters and to desire him to be reconciled.' Several times! When, and where You surprise me much! Either my memory or yours fails strangely. 'In truth, it is he that has stood out.' Alas, my brother! What an assertion is this! Did not I come three years ago (before that Journal was published) in all haste from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and my brother in five days from the Land's End, to a supposed conference in London see Journal, iii. 84-6. Was this standing out But with what effect Why, Mr. Spangenberg had just left London. None besides had any power to confer with us. And, to cut us off from any such expectation, James Hutton said they had orders not to confer at all unless the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London were present.","word_count":380,"source_url":null,"themes":["universal-redemption","christology","catholic-spirit"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T18:42:33.014922"},{"id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-003","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham","source_title":"06 To Benjamin Ingham","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":3,"text":"There cannot be under heaven a greater mistake than this, that I ever did stand out, and that I do so now. There has not been one day for these seven years last past wherein my soul has not longed for union. And they have grossly abused your honest credulity whoever have made you believe the contrary. 7. 'Since the Mr. Wesleys have published such stuff and inconsistencies, I cannot agree with them.' My brother, make some of those inconsistencies appear, and it will be an act of solid friendship. But 'time will manifest matters, and what is of God will stand, and what is of man will come to naught.' Most true; and according to this sure rule, it has already appeared whose work is of God, both at Bradford, at Horton, and in several towns not far from your own neighborhood. 8. The account you give of the Moravians in general is the very same I had given before viz. that next to those of our own Church, 'who have the faith and love which is among them, without those errors either of judgment or practice, the body of the Moravian Church, however mistaken some of them are, are in the main, all of whom I have seen, the best Christians in the world.' In the same tract I sum up my latest judgment concerning them in these terms: 'I believe they love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and have a measure of the mind that was in Him. And I am in great earnest when I declare once more, that I have a deep, abiding conviction by how many degrees the good which is among them overbalances the evil,I speak of the simple and artless part of their congregations; as for the teachers in their Church, it is my solemn belief (I speak it with grief and reluctance) that they are no better than a kind of Protestant Jesuits (Wesley). See letter of Feb. 2, 1745, sect. I. 12. and that I cannot speak of them but with tender affection, were it only for the benefits I have received from them; and that at this hour I desire union with them (were those stumbling-blocks once put away which have hitherto made that desire ineffectual) above all things under heaven.'","word_count":382,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","reign-of-god","free-will"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T18:42:33.015003"},{"id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham-004","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1746-06-to-benjamin-ingham","source_title":"06 To Benjamin Ingham","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":4,"text":"9. In what respects the Brethren are Antinomians, in what sense they lean to Quietism, I have spoken at large. If they can refute the charge, I shall rejoice more than if I had gained great spoils. My brother, I heartily wish both you and them the genuine, open gospel simplicity; that you may always use that artless plainness of speech in which you once excelled; and that by manifestation of the truth you may commend yourself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. I am Your affectionate brother.","word_count":91,"source_url":null,"themes":["scriptural-authority","catholic-spirit","experience"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T18:42:33.015024"}]}