Sanctification — Key Ideas to Explore

Justification by Sight, Sanctification by Faith?

Hoare builds his core argument on a careful reading of 1 Peter 1:2 and 1 John 3:20–24. Justification, he says, is “an act of the hidden mind of God, and perfectly invisible to the eye of man.” A believer cannot see his name in the book of life; he can only trust God's promise. Sanctification, by contrast, is “the law written by the Holy Ghost upon the fleshy tables of the heart,” and therefore “within view of conscience.” Conscience functions as an inward eye, perceiving bad acts, words, thoughts, and also the desire to walk with God. Hoare insists that to claim perfect holiness by faith while conscience still convicts of sin is to misuse faith. Holiness is “not a matter of faith, but of experience.” Yet he immediately qualifies: faith is the power by which God produces holiness. The distinction is not a contradiction but a pastoral tool to prevent either despair or presumption.

The Infection of Nature and the Need for Grace

Hoare devotes a sermon to what he calls “the infection of nature,” a phrase that echoes Article IX of the Thirty-Nine Articles. He does not treat original sin as a doctrine to be debated but as a daily reality that hinders progress. The believer, he writes, finds “reason to be humbled to the dust” when he fairly looks at God's character and his own shortcomings. This discouragement is not a sign of weak faith but a predictable result of aiming at true holiness. Hoare's language is concrete: sin is “ready to break out like a fire at any moment.” The solution is not to deny the infection but to rely on grace—defined not as a vague benevolence but as the Spirit's practical work of writing God's law on the heart. Grace does not remove the infection instantly but supplies power for a progressive, perceptible change.

Holiness Through Faith: A Discovery or a Recovery?

In the sermon titled “Holiness Through Faith,” Hoare pushes back against those who present this principle as a novel discovery. He asks pointedly what books or sermons they had read before finding it, and names Hooker, Bishop Reynolds, Archbishop Leighton, and the evangelical fathers Venn, Cecil, and Simeon as teachers for whom “holiness through faith” was the keynote. The remark reveals Hoare's self-conscious positioning within a tradition. He is not innovating but recovering and applying a standard evangelical Anglican emphasis. The phrase itself—holiness through faith—summarizes his pastoral method: faith is not the ground of sanctification (that is Christ's work) but the instrument by which the believer receives the Spirit's power. Hoare's tone is firm but not combative; he aims to correct without dismissing, to affirm the old paths rather than blaze new ones.

The Practical Shape of Consecration and Prayer

Two later sermons, “Consecration” and “Prayer,” move from doctrine to practice. Hoare treats consecration not as a single crisis decision but as a continual yielding to God, grounded in the recognition that believers are “elect … through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Prayer, similarly, is not a technique but a means by which the Spirit sustains the life of holiness. Hoare avoids emotionalism; his advice is measured and scriptural. He does not promise instant victory or sinless perfection. Instead, he points to the prayer of Christ in John 17: “Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy Word is truth.” The sermons close with expository notes on Romans 7, 1 John 3:6, the word “perfect,” and temptation from Hebrews 4:15—each note clarifying a passage that might be misread to support either antinomianism or perfectionism.

Hoare's Sanctification is best read as a series of connected pulpit addresses, not a treatise. The sermons assume a congregation familiar with evangelical Anglican vocabulary and troubled by the gap between their desire for holiness and their experience of failure. Hoare's consistent move is to redirect attention from inward feelings to the objective work of Christ and the Spirit's agency, while still insisting that holiness must be perceptible to conscience. Readers interested in 19th-century Anglican pastoral theology, or in the history of the doctrine of sanctification, will find here a careful, non-sensational exposition that avoids both quietism and perfectionism.

I remember sitting by the window years ago, turning over Hoare's words about holiness being something you can feel—not just claim. That quiet inward shift reminded me of another evening, with Christ in the Storm No. 26 — Edition Insights, where the same sense of calm amid chaos settled over me, like a familiar hand on a weathered page.