Redemption

Transcribed from the 1878 Hatchards edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BY THE REV. EDWARD HOARE, M.A.
Vicar of Trinity , Tunbridge Wells ; and Hon. Canon of Canterbury .
LONDON: HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY. 1878.
LONDON: Printed by John Strangeways, Castle St. Leicester Sq.
‘But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.’—1 Cor. i. 30.
It is one of the happy characteristics of the present day that persons are much more occupied than they used to be with the subject of emotional religion. The religion of feeling is much more studied than it was forty or fifty years ago. Modern books and modern addresses abound in the records of what is termed ‘Experience.’ To a certain extent this is well; for we all require real, deep, heart-religion, and it would indeed be a shocking thing that we should know the truth of God, and still be strangers to the love of Christ. Love, joy, and peace, are the first fruits of the Spirit, and therefore if God the Holy Ghost dwells in our hearts it seems clear that we must love Him, that we must rejoice in Him, and that we must be at peace resting in His grace. But, just in proportion as we set a high value on the religion of the heart, must we see the importance of a solid foundation of divine truth on which all true heart-religion must ever rest. We cannot build a house on the surface of a river. If we attempt to do so we shall very soon find ourselves at the bottom. So feelings are very apt to fail us just when we want them, if they are not the result of a fixed and solid acquaintance with the truth of God. If they do not spring from established principles they will rise and fall even with the digestion or the weather. It is, therefore, most important that in these happy days of Christian emotion we should have a good foundation of Christian truth, and should be well established in those great foundation facts on which, when all feelings fail us, our souls may rest, and be at peace.