that you could wish. You yet have flesh, as well as spirit ; and " if the spirit lust against the flesh, so will the flesh still strive against the spirit?." You will yet find a law of sin in your members, warring against the law of your minds, and con- straining you at times to cry out, " O ! wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me*?" But go forward, in humble dependence on God. " Continue instant in prayer." Let not your hands hang down ; but let them be stretched forth to God in continual supplications ; and he will come to your relief. He will embitter to you the vanities on which you are tempted to set your affections, and will gradually get himself the victory over all the enemies of your souls. It was only " by little and little that he drove out the Canaanites " before his people of old ; and it is not to be expected that you should have no difficulties to contend with, no conflicts to sustain. But remember where your strength is ; and, " as ye have received the Lord Jesus Christ, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and esta- blished in the faith as ye have been taught, and abounding therein with thanksgiving1':" so will he " preserve you blame- less unto his heavenly kingdom," and " present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy."]
p Gal. v. 17. i Rom. vii. 23, 24. r Col. ii. 6, 7.