Edward Hoare

“ Now whether your anxiety be for yourself or others, remember the divinity of the great salvation. If the whole is divine, why should it not be sufficient? You say you are dead, but cannot the divine power raise the dead? You say your sins are too great for pardon, but is not the divine propitiation sufficient for them all? You say you cannot produce even a good prayer, but does not the divine revelation assure you that the salvation is a free gift even for those who have nothing? ”

“ This, then, is the grace in which we stand, the grace of imputation, the gracious gift of a righteousness reckoned, counted, or imputed to us when we do not deserve it; the marvellous mercy through which we are accounted righteous, accepted as righteous, beloved as righteous, and finally saved as righteous, although we are not really so in fact, and although we are conscious in our own hearts of matter for the most profound humiliation before God. Who can wonder that we rejoice in hope when we are placed in mercy on such a standing-ground as that? ”

“ I can imagine nothing better calculated to make a people calm, peaceful, and courageous, than to be able to say in faith, “Our God shall fight for us.” If we can say this, we may think on our country and rest assured that, whatever happens, all is safe. If we can say this, we may look upon God’s people struggling for His truth, sometimes sorely pressed and sometimes quite disheartened; but when we look on Him whom God has given to be a Leader and Commander of the people, we may take courage that all will be well, for He is our God, and He will fight for us. ”

“ His last words from the throne were those of praise and prayer. His joy ran straight into thanksgiving, and in this thanksgiving two principles were conspicuous, he gave all the glory to God, and he acknowledged himself and his people to be utterly unworthy of the sacred privilege of this happy service. This is the true view of service and of gifts. When God calls us to work for Him, or to give for Him, we should not regard it as a burden laid upon us, but as an honour to which we are invited, an honour that angels themselves might covet. ”

“ They are marked from the world by a clear line of separation. They bear His name; they wear His uniform; they rally round His banner; they are not ashamed of His reproach; and wheresoever He goeth there it is their joy to follow Him. There is no service like His, no commander so perfect, no struggle so noble, no victory so certain and so glorious.
If we really be amongst the chosen band of faithful followers, our one standard in life must be the will of our great Commander. We must be watching each signal from Him, and owning no authority but His. ”

“ But still we must put in a caution, for feelings, however bright, are not to be trusted unless they rise out of principle and end in practice. If you have feeling only—a feeling not based on solid acquaintance with Scriptural truth, it will rise like a bubble, and look as beautiful in its colours, but it will burst as easily as the bubble does, and even at its best estate can never bear the slightest pressure. Here, then, is one extreme—the religion of feeling, of emotion, of impression, taking the place of the religion of conviction, of principle, of faith. ”

“ When we think of the precious blood of Christ, and how the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, can we suppose for a moment that the forgiveness bestowed on us is less complete, or the restoration less perfect, than that of David? Since, then, in his case, the insuperable barrier of his guilt was so completely broken down that he was admitted to this sacred and intimate fellowship, why should any one of us remain at a distance? ”

“ Observe the connection between this safety and these songs of deliverance. The songs are not merely the consequence of the safety, but a part of it. Hidden in the Lord, we are compassed, or surrounded, by them. Whichever way we look, whether forward in hope, or backward in memory, or upwards in trust, there is in every direction something to call forth the praise, and the spirit of thanksgiving is in itself a protection against assault. ”

“ It represents one living in the midst of privileges, but deliberately casting away his faith. He has life and death brought before him, and he chooses death, or, at all events, he chooses that which leads to death. Oh! how marvellous is the boundless grace and mercy of our God, that He should go out of His way to seek and to save any one so unthankful and so guilty! ”

“ Who is there that should not desire to respond with every faculty he possesses to the stirring appeal of St. Paul: “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” [68a] Shall we sleep on as if the old world were going on for ever? Do we really believe that “the Bridegroom cometh,” [68b] and shall we not trim our lamps without one moment’s delay in order that when He comes He may find them burning brightly to His glory? ”

“ Paul could say, “To me to live is Christ,” for he could also say without hesitation that the one thought of his life was his Saviour’s glory. He lived for one object, and that one object is described as his life. Now we hear a great deal of consecration in these days, and we cannot hear too much, if only it is kept in its right place, for there is far too little consecration to God amongst us. Consecration is the surrender of the whole life to the Lord. It is the setting the Lord always before us in all that He calls us to do. ”

“ He does not wait for any external evidence of what is passing. The hidden springs of thought are all open to His eye: the secret pain that is never breathed to any p. 41one; the hidden hope that smoulders in the heart; the subtle temptation that is beginning to grow up unperceived, and the yearning of soul after a higher life,—all these things are open to Him, and He, dwelling within and knowing all that is passing within, can check, can guide, can heal, can help, can supply any possible need “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” ”

“ Let no one suppose that it is not a very solemn thing to die, to be suddenly cut off from everything of which we have ever had any experience, and to launch out alone into an invisible world. It cannot, therefore, be an easy thing to die in peace. But, thanks be to God, we believe that the departing spirit passes at once into the loving presence of our Redeemer, and why should there not be peace? I believe it is the forgetfulness of this personal entrance into the personal presence of a personal Saviour that sometimes seems to darken the dying hour. ”

“ To open the heart required a Divine power as much as to open the door. It is important for us clearly to bear in mind this principle, that the power to enter in is of itself the gift of God—that we must trust Him not only to save us when we have entered in, but to enable us to enter in; not only to show mercy on us when we have come near to Him, but to draw us near by His own Spirit. ”

“ As He is unseen, so it is unseen; but as He is safe at the right hand of the Father, so is it safe, being laid up in perfect safety as a sure deposit in the everlasting fidelity of God. It is on the safety of this deposit that our whole life depends. If there were the slightest doubt about it we should be like ships drifting on the wide ocean without either chart, compass, or anchorage. But now we are safe because indissolubly bound up with the Saviour, and so completely is our life identified with Him that in the next verse He is described as “Christ our life.” ”

“ The joy of the Lord is a subject that goes to the heart of many. Some are rejoicing in the Lord, while others are longing to be partakers of it; it is a gift after which their heart is yearning.
Let us consider the real foundation of true, solid, well-founded joy. In these two verses there is a description of the joy and its power. There is the joy, for “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God,” and there is the power of that joy, for it rises above the troubles of life, and we rejoice “even in tribulation.” ”

“ But the work for us does not go up and down with the work in us; it is unchangeable, like God Himself. The righteousness imputed is the righteousness of God, and therefore perfect and unchangeable. It changeth not for the simple reason that He changeth not, and therefore always, in cloud as well as sunshine, in dark days as well as bright, in the hour of tribulation as well as in the season of unmixed prosperity, in the times of deepest humiliation as well as in those of emotion and encouragement, the justified believer may rejoice in Him, and triumph in the God of his salvation. ”

“ A father may be leaving his wife and family, who have been dependent on him for support; or a mother her children, with the strong conviction that there is no substitute for a mother’s love. Let no one suppose that there is no trial of faith in such a separation, and that it is not, in many cases, very hard to trust. But in Christ Jesus there may be peace even in such a parting, and the dying mother, if she knows her Saviour, may trust her all into His loving hands, and say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.” ”

“ There is such a thing as work without a will. There is the dull, lazy work of the idle man, and the mechanical work of those who take no interest in what they are about. Just as in religion, there is the languid performance of a routine as different as possible to the real wrestling with God in faith. There is no soul in it, and who can wonder if there is no result? In this case there was rapid result, and they built the wall, and the reason is given, “for the people had a mind to work.” [51] An important lesson this for every Christian effort. ”

“ There is no hope, therefore, of any man winning to himself a union with Christ by any amount of painstaking in work. If your heart is yearning for that union, you must accept it as a free gift because Christ Jesus, the Son of God, has redeemed you by His own most precious blood, and you must do so just as you are, without waiting for even one more effort in His service. ”

“ Companionship, for as a reconciled and loving Father He never for a moment leaves His child, by night or by day, in joy or in sorrow; in active work, or in quiet submission; in the ministry at home or in the distant work of missions. Wherever His people are, and in whatever circumstances, there is He with them as their Father, their Friend, their Companion, their Helper, their God.
For He also says, “I am thy God.” He is not merely with us, but with us in all the omnipotence of Godhead. An earthly friend may fail in helping us; but when He is with us as our God He will never fail. ”

“ Now, the thought of His appearing should have this effect on ourselves. Who is there amongst us that does not want to be quickened; to be aroused to fresh energy for God; to have the soul filled with a holy fervour, and the whole heart glowing with the love of Christ? ”

“ He has become man and died for us, but we are to light the candle, sweep the house, and seek diligently till we find the lost ones. We are to spare no effort for their recovery: we are to search them out; we are to let them know that there is a Christian friend anxious for their safety, and that there will not only be joy amongst the angels of God, but a hearty welcome amongst His people on earth for any poor lost one brought in lowly repentance to the feet of the Blessed Saviour, there to find pardon and recovery. ”

“ There is this great difference between His presence and that of the most faithful and loving of friends. The friend can only judge by the outside; the anxious look, the tear in the eye, or the words of sorrow. But the Spirit of Truth is within, and He takes note of the inner secrets of the soul. ”