The Rev. Geo. F Macarthur's Attack
on the
Wesleyan Methodists
The Following letters were originally published in the Cumberland Times, a Parramatta newspaper, and are reprinted in their present form for the purpose of giving them a a wider circulation than they have hitherto obtained, the reverend gentleman to whom they are addressed still persisting in the offensive course they denounce, and their author having no inclination to prolong the contest through the column of a newspaper.
In excuse for the tone of rebuke which he has not felt in unbecoming to assume, the writer may be permitted a reference to the facts, that the disparity of years between himself and his correspondent is equal to disparity between father and son; that he is one of the oldest Ministers of Religion, and, he believes, the oldest Wesleyan Methodist Preacher, in the Australian Colonies, having been ordained early in the year 1820, having commenced his ministerial labours in Tasmania and New South Wales in the same year, and having mercifully spared to continue those labours to the present, thus completing a full half century.
During this lengthened series of years he does not remember having ever witnessed an assault upon the Wesleyan Methodist Church breathing a spirit so virulent, expressed in language so coarse, persisted in so long and so rancourously, and above all, so entirely unprovoked, as that which has called forth this publication.
And he is bound to add, that, in his judgement, the assault is in no small degree aggravated by the consideration that the assailant is one to whom have been confided tow important trusts, - the education of the sons of some of our most respectable families, and the Chaplaincy of our Volunteer Force. It will be generally admitted that in neither of these departments of social responsibility can such an example of sectarian rancour. be expected to produce any but the most prenicious fruits.
THe first of the following letters, as may be inferred from the mildness of its tone, was written under the impression that upon reading it Mr. Macarthur would see the errors he had fallen into, and regret the step he had taken. The sequel proves the impression to have been far too charitable. THe first offence was mild compared with the second; the second is said to have been mild compared to the third. And the author is informed that these attacks through the newspaper have been followed by attack from the pulpit; that on Sunday last, in All Saints' Church, Mr. Macarthur, officiating for the incumbent, then sorrowing under a deep domestic afflication, preached so pointedly and so bitterly against the Methodists that several of the congregation signified their displeasure by taking up their hats and walking out the the Church.
Parramatta, 20th September, 1870.
No 1
To the Rev. G. F. Macarthur, the King's School, Parramatta
Rev. Sir - A friend has invited my attention to a letter published in the Cumberland Times of Satuday last, addressed to the Rev. J H. Dash, and signed with your name. I have learnt that Mr. Dahs had never heard or seen anything of this letter until it mades its appearance in the newspaper. I am therefore free to believe that it was published by yourself, and that you wrote it for the public rather than for the gentleman named in its superscription.
Although you here speak ostensibly of a religious body to which I do not belong, I cannot doubt that most of your readers would understand you to allude also, in the main points of your letter, to the body of which I am a member - the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Nor can I doubt that such allusion was intended. I must therefore beg permission to say a few words in reference to those points.
You stat e it to be the "especial glory" of the church of which you are a member "to represent in her polity Apostolic order, no less than Apostolic doctrine." The inuendo obviously is, that his polity of your Church differs essentially from the polity of Methodism. I meet the inuendo by affirming that Apostolic order, not less than Apostolic doctrine, is the especial glory of the church of which I am a member. The Wesleyan Methodist Church holds that the authority of her Ministers to [reach the doctrines which the Apostles taught, is founded on the scripturally attested and duly recognised fact of their having been called to the office and work of the Ministry by the same Divine Spirit which called the Apostles to that office and work.