Edward Hoare

“ Then, again, the witness is not a medium, or connecting link, between the soul and the Saviour. He is not like a telegraph wire through which the electric current is conveyed from one point to another, for in God’s salvation there is nothing intermediate between the Saviour and the sinner. ”

“ Shall we be content with powerless work? Shall we think it enough if our ministry is respectable and orthodox, our churches well attended, and our parochial arrangements complete, while there is no deep impression on the souls of men, no conviction of sin, no earnest inquiry, no conversions to God, no evidence of a new life, and no sign of the mighty power of the Spirit? Shall we be satisfied p. 16to live on, and to work on, just as we should be living and working if the Lord had never said, ‘Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you?’
There is also indwelling power. ”

“ The Consecration of the Bishop of Sodor and Man will long be remembered, both at York and Sheffield; for no one can have been present on that occasion without having been profoundly impressed by the sight of the overwhelming congregation, and the many tokens of deep interest manifestly taken in the service. So many of the Sheffield people desired to be present that two special trains were prepared for their accommodation, by which there arrived no less than seven hundred persons. The Dean having heard that they were coming did all in his power to give them a welcome. ”

“ One thing is perfectly plain, viz. that the power does not come from arbitrary assumption, and high sacerdotal claims to something amounting p. 14to superhuman authority; to such claims as those put forward when the Bishop’s authority is contrasted with that which is ‘merely human,’ and the Bishop’s voice is declared to be to the clergyman ‘the voice of God.’ Such assumptions being without the slightest shadow of scriptural authority are sure, in the long run, only to weaken power. ”

“ Forgiveness through the finished atonement is the leading subject of the testimony. It is the office of the witness to proclaim the great work which the Lord Jesus Christ has completed for the propitiation of sin, and to invite men to the free and full reconciliation which He has promised as the result of that propitiation. ”

“ Do not they equally need the power? Or, rather, Do not they especially need the presence of the indwelling Spirit in their own souls, and of the accompanying Spirit to give the power of patient perseverance in their work? ”

“ But while we pray for him in the high and conspicuous office of a Bishop, let us not be unmindful of all those faithful men who, hidden from the eye of the world, and without any prospects of the honours of the world, are toiling on, some in quiet country parishes, some in the densely-peopled districts of our large towns, and some in far-distant missions, in patient perseverance witnessing for Christ. ”

“ We have to encounter the threefold antagonism of the world, the flesh, and the devil; and we ourselves are poor weak creatures, so weak that p. 8we are quite unable to stand alone, and so utterly fallen that we cannot preserve ourselves even for an hour. It follows, therefore, that we all stand in need of power from God. And whatever be our position, whether in the ministry or out of it, whether laymen, deacons, presbyters, or bishops, we all require to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. ”

“ In this gift there is accompanying power, a p. 15power which it is difficult to describe, but impossible to doubt. It is not the power of intellect or eloquence, for it is bestowed sometimes on persons that have neither one nor the other: but it is a power that cannot be mistaken; for it softens hard hearts, breaks down the most stubborn wills, and subdues those who have been previously opponents to truth. It was such a power that accompanied the preaching St. ”

“ We are to proclaim from His own word what He is, what He has done, what He has promised, and what He is doing. We are to set Him so clearly, so vividly, before the people, that they may see nothing of us, p. ”