It does not follow from this that the two gifts will be completed at the same time, or in the same way: the writing of the law on the heart is through a gradual process of Divine education; the blotting out of sin, an immediate act complete at once in the mind of God: but both are acts of the great Deliverer, and for both equally it is the joy of our hearts to trust Him. Trust Him, therefore, to work out a holiness in your soul just as you trust Him to have given you the forgiveness of your sin. If you are trusting Him for imputed righteousness,—that is, trusting Him for having wrought out such a work in your behalf that you are already ‘made the righteousness of God in Him,’—trust Him also for personal holiness; that by the power of the Holy Ghost your character may be conformed to your position. There are many powers by which you may gain many victories, but there is only one by which you can overcome the world: viz., that described by St. John when he said, ‘This is the victory that over-cometh the world, even our faith.’ Be sure, then, that that power is sufficient; so that, trusting Christ, you may rest assured of victory. You are not condemned to toil on in a condition of disheartening hopelessness; but you may enter on each day of your life in the happy and peaceful assurance, not that you are perfect, but that you have perpetually at hand a loving Lord fully able by His own omnipotence to overcome in you your besetting sin. So you may go up from the wilderness leaning on the Beloved, and by God’s grace may walk with Him to victory. Past failures must teach you your own most terrible corruption; but God’s truth may assure you of His sufficiency: so that at the very moment of your own most utter helplessness, when you are ready to cry, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ you may reply to your own question in the triumphant language of the Apostle, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ CONSECRATION. ‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.’—ROM. xii. 1.