New Tracts for New Times. Edited by A. Newman, D.D.
(John Wilson.)—This pamphlet appears to us to merit the strongest reproba- tion. It consists of three separate tracts, each of which is directed against the New Testament. The first is designed to show that there is a hopeless discordance between the accounts of the institution of the Lord's Supper given by St. Matthew and St. John, the only two Evan- gelists who profess to have been present on the occasion ; the second .argues that none of the passages from the Old Testament which are
referred to in the Gospels as prophecies relating to Jesus have any real reference to the coming of the Messiah; while the third is direoted generally against "the histories of Jesus of Nazareth, commonly called the Gospels." We have always been ready to give the widest latitude to inquiries of this kind, provided they be conducted in a b000raing spirit, free alike from bigotry and intolerance on the ono hand, and from flippancy and irreverence on the other. In the present instance
the necessary conditions have not been observed. This remark refers specially to the third tract, the author of which may fairly claim to be regarded, not only as flippant and irreverent, but also as blasphemous and obscene. Should Dr. A. Newman be a real person, we do not envy him the credit of having given those productions to the world ;
but we are inclined to think that the name is a fictitious one, and that
the title of the pamphlet is intended, in the ears of the initiated, to ran thus : "New Tracts for Now Times. Edited by a New Man." Writers
of this stamp are always fond of associating themselves with Bishop
Colons°, and regarding themselves as fellow-labourers with him in a crusade against superstition and intolerance, forgetting that the tone
which they adopt is fully as repugnant to the earnest inquirer after truth as it can possibly be to the most unreasoning adherent of verbal inspiration.
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