Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/148

136 anything else to deliver Himself from such imputation or its consequences.”

The abjuration was full and evidently sincere, but it was felt by most of the Brethren to be only partial, and not to cover the special error of the recent tracts. This error had consisted in attributing non-atoning judicial suffering to our Lord as a member of the nation of Israel. Not that Newton persisted in this view, for, on the contrary, he withdrew both the incriminated tracts “for reconsideration”. Darby, however, without awaiting the results of the reconsideration, hastened to issue a Notice of the Statement, in which he set it aside as worthless. He was not without a well-grounded apprehension that he would be “considered relentless,” but he thought “of the interest of the Church of God in it, and even of Mr. Newton’s own”. The charity of the pamphlet how- ever is not such as to constitute Newton greatly his critic’s debtor.

It may be well to anticipate here the issue of the controversy as it relates to Mr. Newton personally. The withdrawn tracts were never reissued, but, on the other hand, their teaching was never (so far as I can ascertain) formally repudiated by their author. In 1848 he issued A Letter on Subjects connected with the Lord’s Humanity, which appeared both to Darby and to George Müller to reaffirm the objectionable doctrine in its essence, though with great modification of terms. Mr. Newton’s adherents claim that the ripe results of his reconsideration are contained in a pamphlet published in 1858, under the title of Christ our Suffering Surety. That Mr. Newton’s ultimate position was one of ultra-orthodoxy is of course notorious, but it is highly unfortunate that