GREENWICH, JULY 20TH, 1892

GREENWICH, JULY 20TH, 1892

Mr. J. Edmondson.

My Dear Brother, — Glad to have a line from you and thank you for the enclosures to your letter, though to me the matter is now of the past. As regards your reference to J.N.D. as to ‘new birth’ I have had the same thing pointed out before in his writings. It is difficult to use what he may have said, in opposing each particular error, in a general sort of way. That new birth is not apart from faith everyone would admit. But faith is not natural to man, and if faith precedes new birth then faith is the ^[p. 69] work of God — and is thus really new birth, i.e., the beginning. This appears to me to be really J.N.D.’s point. He is contending against the idea of faith being an ‘intellectual process’ and he speaks of faith as a work wrought by God in the soul, and again that faith is ‘that by which we are thus born’. Thus with him evidently faith is the work of God in the soul. The main idea is that all began with God and that is how new birth is continually brought in in John.

We are well through mercy. We have just had G. Cutting here for ten days and much enjoyed his visit and I trust there is some blessing as the result of it.

I hope you are well and remain,
Your affectionate brother,
F. E. Raven.