THE REV. MR FITCHETT.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2108, 4 February 1879, Page 2

THE REV. MR FITCHETT.

Some time ago we published in one columns a letter bearing on the subject ol the Rev. Mr Fitchett's ordination, and we deem it onlj just to thai gentleman to make the following additional extract from the Churchman. It is in th« form* of a letter addressed to Archdeacon Edward* :— " My Dear Archdeecon,-I gather from the correspondence eotamns of the Churchman, and from a sentence in the leading article of last month, that my statement to the Trinity Wesleyan I Congregation, in announcing my resignation, is thought to be inconsistent with the fact that I hare since sought orders in the Church of England, since I affirmed my purpose to maintain unchanged the principles which had characterised my teachings as a Wealeyan minister. I don't care to write to the Churchman, but perhaps there may be some propriety in my explaining to you that, as Wesleyan doctrinal standards are in substance identioal with those of the Church of England, I imagined myself to be saying nothing that could wear the least look of inconsistency with vaj declared intentioa to quit one communion for another. Everybody knows that Wesley was a Church of England clergyman to the day of his death. In his Journal he writes : ' A serious clergyman desired to know in what points we aiffered from the Church of England. I answered, to the best of my knowledge, in none. The doctrine* we preach are the doctrines of the Church of England, indeed the fundamental doctrines of the Church, clearly laid down both in her prayers, articles, and homilies. It is well known that no alteration whaterer has been made in the doctrinal standards of Wesieyanism since the death of it* founder. Wesley and his followers diverged from the Church of England not in doctrine, but in eooleaisjttoal polity, and in that particular I now diverge from him and them. If I am asked what ecclesiastical polity I adopt in abandoning Wesley's, I take it that the fact of my recent ordination in the Ohnreh of England is a sufficient reply. — I am, etc., A. R. Fitomit."