

Transcribed from the 1878, (third) Hatchards edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org





                              Sanctification


                                * * * * *

                                  BY THE
                         REV. EDWARD HOARE, M.A.
  _Vicar of Trinity_, _Tunbridge Wells_; _and Hon. Canon of Canterbury_.

                                * * * * *

                         Third Edition, Enlarged.

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                          HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY.
                                  1878.

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                       PRINTED BY JOHN STRANGEWAYS,
                         Castle St. Leicester Sq.

                                * * * * *




PREFACE.


THE following pages contain the substance of some Sermons preached in the
course of my parochial ministry, on the subject of Sanctification, and
are published at the request of several members of my congregation.

They contain nothing new, and, being parochial sermons, they are not in
the form of a systematic treatise.  But I hope they exhibit the doctrine
of Sanctification as revealed in Scripture, as embodied in the teaching
of the Church of England, and as preached by those who are generally
termed the Evangelical Clergy.

They are not so much controversial as practical.  My desire has not been
to discuss new opinions, but to bring out old truths.  I shall be truly
thankful if this shall prove to have been done; and I commit them to God,
with the earnest prayer that He may make them useful, by the power of the
Holy Spirit, to those who long for the fulfilment of the prayer of their
most blessed Saviour,—‘Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy Word is
truth.’

                                                                     E. H.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS.




CONTENTS.

                                                           PAGE
SEPARATION UNTO GOD                                           1
LEGAL CLEANSING:
                        SANCTIFICATION THROUGH BLOOD         14
                        THE CLEANSING BLOOD                  27
PERSONAL HOLINESS:
                        THE SANCTIFIED                       40
                        PROGRESS                             50
                        INFECTION OF NATURE                  64
                        GRACE                                78
                        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH               91
                        CONSECRATION                        103
                        PRAYER                              117
GOD’S NAME SANCTIFIED                                       132
EXPOSITORY NOTES:
                        ROMANS, VII.                        143
                        1 JOHN, III. 6                      146
                        THE WORD ‘PERFECT’                  149
                        TEMPTATION, HEB. IV. 15             152
DOCTRINAL NOTES                                             154




SEPARATION UNTO GOD.


    ‘Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through
    sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the
    blood of Jesus Christ; Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.’—1
    PET. i. 2.

It is one of the encouraging features of the present day that many of the
Lord’s people are aiming at a higher standard of Christian holiness than
they have ever yet known, and are looking to the great grace of their
most blessed Saviour to raise them by His Spirit above the various
hindrances which have hitherto impeded their progress.  They desire that
there should be no impediment in the service of their blessed Saviour.
In their worship they would draw very near to Him, and in their life they
would glorify His name.  But yet, when they seek to do so, and when they
fairly look at God’s character, God’s claims, God’s will, and God’s
glory, they find reason to be humbled to the dust; and the more they
realize His infinite mercy in Christ Jesus, the more they learn of the
magnitude and multitude of their own shortcomings.  Thus it sometimes
comes to pass that in many true believers their greatest discouragements
are intimately connected with their efforts after holiness, and many of
their doubts and difficulties arise from their real desire for true
sanctification.  The more that they aim at the holiness of God, the more
they feel their sin, and the more earnestly that they strive to rise, the
more keenly do they feel the pain and humiliation of the ruin of their
fallen nature.  It is important therefore for those who desire holiness
to look carefully into the teaching of Scripture on the great subject of
Sanctification; to examine what is really promised, and to learn what the
Word of God teaches us to expect.  Does it, or does it not, make
provision for such difficulties?  And if it does, what is the provision?
These are some of the questions which I desire now to consider, and I
hope it may please God to fulfil to both writer and reader the prayer of
the Apostle: ‘The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God
your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Now one of the great difficulties of the subject is, that in all
languages certain words are employed to express more than one idea, and
that the idea connected with the word often changes as time advances.  To
a certain extent this applies to the word ‘sanctification’ in sacred
Scripture.  It has no less than four distinct meanings in the Word of
God; and, if we treat them all as if they were the same, we are sure to
be confused.  It has its original sense, and three others that have grown
out of it.  The original sense is separation unto God, or dedication; and
the three that have grown out of it are legal cleansing, personal
holiness, and the exaltation of the holiness of God.  If therefore we
wish to understand the teaching of Scripture, we must clearly examine the
use of the word in these four senses.  May the Lord Himself help us to do
so!

If we turn then to the beginning, we shall find that the original sense
of the word ‘to sanctify’ is to set apart unto God.

So in the Old Testament the Hebrew is frequently rendered ‘to hallow,’ or
to set apart as a holy thing.

In this sense it is used of the Sabbath (Gen. ii. 3): ‘God blessed the
seventh day, and sanctified it.’  He separated it from the ordinary
purposes of common life, and set it apart as a day peculiar to Himself.
So again the first-born were set apart unto God, and therefore said to be
sanctified; as we read, Exod. xiii. 2: ‘Sanctify unto Me all the
first-born—both of man and of beast: it is mine.’  So of the Temple, God
said (2 Chron. vii. 16), ‘I have chosen and sanctified this house, that
my name may be there for ever.’  The same is said of the priests, the
vessels of the sanctuary, and the lamb taken from the flock for
sacrifice: they were all separated unto God, and thus said to be
sanctified.  It is in this sense that our blessed Saviour made use of the
word, when He said in John, xvii. 19, ‘For their sakes I sanctify
myself.’  No one can suppose for one moment that He made Himself more
holy, or cleansed Himself from actual sin, for He had been from all
eternity holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.  There was
no possibility of any increase of holiness in Him.  But He did, from the
deep love that filled His heart, set Himself apart unto God, to be the
one perfect sin-offering for man.  As the lamb was sanctified when it was
taken from the flock, and set apart for sacrifice, so did He sanctify
Himself when He separated Himself from all human fellowship, and, as one
set apart unto God, bore alone the whole burden of human guilt.

Now, this is the sense in which the word is used whenever sanctification
is spoken of as something past, or complete