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You allege that the "Methodists have separated from the church of their forefathers, and gone out of her." As regards my own Church, I must be allowed to attribute this assertion to a misconception of historical facts. Our venerable father in God, the Rev. John Wesley, was indeed a member and a Minister ofr the Church of England, and never "separated" or "went out" from her; but was rudely ejected from her pulpits,and despitefully used and persecuted by not a few of her dignitaries. If the bond of fellowship between her and him was broken, it was broken by herself. nor did the Wesleyan Methodist Church ever "separate" or "go out" from the Church of England, for to that Church she never belonged. Of her original membersl, some no doubt had been accustomed to attend the services of the Church by law established; others might have been connected with the various non-conformist churches of the day; but the history of her early times abundantly shows that the great bulk of them had belonged to no Church at all, but were gathered by the instrumentality of Mr Wesley and his fellow labourer from the moral wastes of the world.
In thus addressing you, Sir, I would wish not to be misunderstoodl. I do not complain of your having written this letter, but i think you. out not to have published it. I cannot see the the circumstances called for such a step; and it appears to me that in taking such a step, you went out of your way to wound the feelings of many of your peaceable and unoffending neighbours.
I am, Rev. Sir,
Your obedient servant,
R. Mansfield
Hanley Ville, Parramatta, 24th August, 1870
No 2
To the Rev. G. F. Macarthur
Rev. Sir, - I have read with attention your long letter in the Cumberland Times of last week. My chief object in doing so was to see whether you had justified, or explained, or regretted, in a way that I could deem satisfactory, the improper act which had induced me to address you. You have done neither. Your explanation is an open avowal of the fact of which previously I had only circumstantial proof and your attempt at justification is a pitiable failure.
In contempt of the well understood usuages which regulate the intercourse of gentlemen, you had answered a private letter, without its author's consent, through the columns of a newspaper. You have not justified that. You had made your unauthorised answer the weapon of attack upon the religious tenets of many of your peaceable neighbours. You have not justified that. Instead, indeed, of either justifying or apologising you have repeated the offence in another form, and in more amplified detail, and in more insulting terms; and have attempted to unchurch not only the religious communion of which I am a member, but every religious communion in the world which does not submit to your own narrow dogma of priestly succession.
From the gentleman with whose private letter you had taken so unwarrantable a liberty, you hvae turned upon the humble individual who had publicly dealt you waht he thought, and still thinks, a well meritied rebuke. And you have turned upon me as if the main question between us was one of creeds and systems of Church government; while the question demanding your attention related to your own conduct. Admitting all you say about creeds and Church government, what can be said of your unprovoked onslaught on the religious concerns of your neighbours, dealing your "apostolic blows and knocks" right and left, in reply to a civial private note. Was such conduct becoming of a school for Christian youth. That is the point; and upon that point I think there are not many persons, either in your own Church or in any other, who will differ with me in the opinion that you had "gone out of your way" made a greivous mistake, and ought to be heartily sorry.
Of your flippant remarks upon my own Church, my former letter adverted to two points. You had insinuated that while she might glory in Apostolic doctrine, she did not or could not glory in Apostolic order. I met your insinuation by affirming that she gloried in both. For insinuation you now substitute direct assertion, and will have it that her glorying is vain; that all the glory belongs to your own Church, and not a glimmer of it to mine.
You have charged the Methodists with having foresaken the Church of their forefathers. I attributed your change, in so far as it was aimed at my own Church, to a misconception of historical facts. You reply by quotations which prove one part of my case, but do not disprove the other. They prove that Mr Wesley had not himself separated from the Church of England, and was unwilling that any of his adherents (such of them, that is, as had been wont to attend her services) should take a course different from his own; although he did not hesitate to acknowledge, "The Uninterrupted Succession I know to be a. fable, which no man ever did or can prove" - and acknowledgement which perhaps you did not find it convenient to quote. But your quotations do not disprove my assertion that the Wesleyan Methodist Church had never separated from the Church of England, seeing that to that Church she had never belonged.
But suppose you had disproved it. What then? Had she not a right to separate if she thought proper to do so? Had she not as good a right to separate from your Church as your Church had to separate from the Church of her forefathers? And if it was right for you to come out from the Roman Catholic Church because of what you believed to be her corruptions, was it not just as right for us to come out from the Church of England because of what we