The Believer's Victory.
By W. L. Parsons
SATAN will, if possible, awaken a practical unbelief in respect to the feasibility of living a triumphantly victorious life while in the flesh. How few persons really expect, habitually, to overcome the world! They know they are to be tempted and believe the tempter will triumph over them. They magnify the power of the adversary, they dwell upon the peculiar difficulties of their case, and are afraid to venture upon the Deliverer with a full confidence that he will make them conquerors indeed, by his own power. They fear to make the promises their own; they forget the covenant and the oath of the Redeemer; they lose sight of the "strongholds"—the altar and the mercy-seat—and have no heart to insist, "By these, the victory is mine, now and forever!" Thus they are full of a subtle unbelief, into which Satan has inveigled them. They have bowed their necks to the yoke of bondage, which they expect to wear all their lives, looking to their own death, at last, for deliverance, instead of looking now to Christ for a power to break their yoke, and to put them into "the glorious liberty of the children of God." So unbelieving has the church been, that it has often been deemed a heresy to hold that a practical victory over "the world, the flesh, and the devil" is even possible to the Christian.—Rev. W. L. Parsons, D. D.