JUNE 27TH, 1898

JUNE 27TH, 1898

I think that we are now exercised as to the subjects to be taken up at the (so-called) conference. I think there is a good deal of prayer about it.. .. It is pretty much agreed that the evening meetings are to be lectures, but my anxiety is as to the readings. I earnestly pray that we may have the mind of the Lord in the matter and that we may be occupied with great principles of truth and not with points. In the existing state of christendom, great responsibility rests on brethren that they should set forth the mind of Christ.

(The following extract from a letter — not by F.E.R. — is inserted here as being of peculiar interest. It was written from Chicago on October 14th, 1898, by Mr. Broomhead, of Greenwich, who accompanied Mr. Raven on his 1898 visit to U.S.A. The reading referred to was held at Rochester on October 11th, 1898, and will be found in the current New Series. — ED.)

The reading on Tuesday morning was on ‘Deliverance’ and Colossians 2 was read. An important point was that F.E.R. thought that salvation was the breaking the power of the enemy and liberating the captive, but that deliverance was more in connection with details gone through experimentally,

^[p. 147] and would not be needed if a christian left this world at the moment of his conversion. In the latter part of the meeting there was a very interesting digression as to the way in which divine Persons have been revealed. F.E.R. thought that ‘the Son’ is used in special reference to the Father and the name ‘Son of God’ in reference to man, but that none of these titles are applied to Him in Scripture until incarnation, and therefore we are not authorised to carry these titles back into eternity. The reading was exceedingly free and greatly enjoyed.