Multiplied Blessings: Eighteen Short Readings — Context and Discussion

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Authors: Hoare, Edward, 1812-1894 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2013 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Sermons, English -- Excerpts Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 28,893

Reading time 126 min

Text sections 4

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An editorial note on Edward Hoare's 'Multiplied Blessings', examining his precise theological diction, the structural use of Hebrew plural forms, and the consistent distinction between work 'for us' and 'in us' across these sermon extracts.

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ed his Psalm, and in these words he said that to which every forgiven soul will most heartily add, “Amen.”

What was the peculiar character of that blessedness? We learn from verses 3 and 4 the awful misery of sin unrepented and unforgiven. We find how David’s tears were dried up by the burning heat of a guilty conscience, and how the dreadful burden weighed day and night upon his soul. Then in the next verse we are taught the secret of the great transition from misery to peace. We find how he made up his mind to make no further efforts to conceal his guilt. He resolved to confess it before God, and no longer attempt to hide it from man. The result was a complete, assured, and most merciful forgiveness. “Thou forgavest,” he said, “the iniquity of my sin.” He was assured of the gift, but what was the unspeakable blessedness to which, when forgiven, he was admitted?

This we learn from the words of our text in which we find the peaceful intercourse of the forgiven soul with God. It is that peaceful intercourse which constitutes the real test of forgiveness, Christ died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God: so those who are made partakers of that atoning work are actually brought to God and made what the Psalmist calls “a people near unto Him.” {7} So it was in the case of David. There was nothing to keep him any longer at a distance, and in the full peace of complete reconciliation he enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of communion with God. The account of this communion is given us in the verses of our text, in the first of which we have the language of the forgiven sinner to God, in the second the reply from God Himself.

I. THE LANGUAGE OF THE FORGIVEN SOUL ADDRESSING GOD.

He that was afar off without any shelter from the rough storm of an accusing conscience, is now able to look up to the God who has forgiven him and say, “Thou art my hiding-place.” He finds his shelter and his safety in the presence of that very God whose law he had broken. He does not say, “Thou hast provided a hiding-place,” but “Thou _art_ my hiding-place.” He who had been exposed without protection to the sore buffetings of his own conscience, confirmed as it was by the just sentence of God’s holy law, had been so completely restored that he had found in God Himself a hiding-place.

In that sacred hiding-place he realized two results, safety and praise. When hidden there he was safe, just as our own life is safe when hidden with Christ in God, and therefore he could say, “Thou shalt preserve me,” and when hidden there he would live in the very atmosphere of thanksgiving, so he said, “Thou shalt compass me about (or surround me) with songs of deliverance.” A song of deliverance is a song of praise from one that has been delivered. The Song of Moses was a song of deliverance when he stood on the shores of the Red Sea after he had seen the hosts of Egypt overwhelmed in the flood. {8a} David’s was a song of deliverance when God had brought him up out of the horrible pit and established his goings, and had put a new song in his mouth. {8b} The song of the great multitude before the throne is a song of deliverance, when, brought out of great tribulation, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, they sing, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” {8c}

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.

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Edward Hoare's Multiplied Blessings opens with a philological observation: the Hebrew word rendered 'Blessed' in Psalm 32 is plural, indicating 'multiplied blessings' flowing from forgiveness. This attention to a single word sets the tone for the eighteen readings that follow. Hoare, a Victorian vicar and canon, writes with a lawyer-like precision, parsing terms such as 'grace', 'faith', and 'imputation' as if building a case. The excerpts reveal a writer who moves from textual detail to doctrinal inference, often grounding his exhortations in a specific verse before expanding into application.

Diction as Doctrine

Hoare's vocabulary is carefully chosen to distinguish between related concepts. In the reading on 'The Joy of the Lord', he differentiates 'the grace of imputation' from 'the inward work of God the Holy Ghost in the soul'. The former, he argues, is 'a work for us, and not in us', and therefore 'never varies'. This lexical precision recurs throughout: 'standing' is contrasted with 'feelings', 'trust' with 'religious efforts'. Hoare does not merely assert; he defines. When he writes that 'the word grace has different meanings in Scripture', he proceeds to enumerate those meanings, anchoring each in a specific usage. This habit of definition gives the sermons a catechetical quality, as if Hoare is equipping readers with a glossary for spiritual self-examination.

The Structure of Assurance

Each reading follows a discernible pattern: a scriptural text, a doctrinal claim, a distinction, and a pastoral application. In 'The Joy of the Lord', Hoare moves from Romans 5:2 to the question 'What is the grace?', then to the answer 'a righteousness imputed', and finally to the comfort that this righteousness 'changeth not'. The structure itself reinforces the message of stability. Hoare frequently uses contrastive pairs—'work for us' versus 'work in us', 'cloud' versus 'sunshine', 'joy one day' versus 'despair the next'—to underscore the reliability of divine grace over human fluctuation. This rhetorical architecture mirrors the theological point: the reader is led from uncertainty to a fixed foundation.

The Voice of the Preacher

Hoare's authorial voice is direct and pastoral, but not colloquial. He addresses 'you' and 'we' inclusively, as in 'we have had access, or admission, and are now standing in His grace'. Yet he also employs the first-person plural to include himself in the struggle: 'we are conscious in our own hearts of matter for the most profound humiliation before God.' The tone is earnest without being sentimental. Hoare avoids florid imagery; his metaphors are functional—'standing on the rock', 'walking steadily on the waves'. The effect is that of a careful guide who anticipates objections. When he writes 'This, you observe, is a work for us, and not in us', the phrase 'you observe' invites the reader to follow his reasoning step by step.

Recurring Threads Across the Readings

Several motifs recur across the excerpts. The distinction between objective and subjective experience appears repeatedly: 'the work in us is perpetually changing' but 'the work for us does not go up and down'. Another thread is the emphasis on 'trust' as the single requirement: 'Trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your finished Sacrifice and your living Lord, and you stand on the rock.' Hoare also returns to the idea of 'standing-ground' or 'resting place', a spatial metaphor for doctrinal security. These threads suggest that the readings, though separate, form a coherent pastoral theology. The preface notes they are 'extracts from written sermons' selected for 'practical help', and the excerpts bear this out: each reading isolates one facet of assurance and polishes it through repetition and refinement.

Readers approaching Multiplied Blessings will find a work that rewards attention to its verbal architecture. Hoare's method is cumulative: each reading builds on a scriptural phrase, unpacks its theological weight, and applies it to the believer's daily experience. The sermons were written for oral delivery, and the prose retains a rhythmic, exhortatory quality. Those interested in Victorian homiletics or the theology of assurance will find here a precise, unsentimental voice that treats doctrine as both a comfort and a discipline.

Reading about Edward Hoare’s careful distinction between what Christ works for us and in us, I felt that old, familiar hush. It reminded me of how, in The All-Sufficiency of Christ. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. I — Inside the Classic, the same quiet arithmetic of grace appears—not as doctrine, but as a hand held out in the half-light.