The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied

For this I understand by oil in the vessel, the Spirit of Jesus, not out of us, but received in us; not coming only upon us, for so he may on foolish virgins, by Balaamitish ravishments, and hypocritical pangs, and land-flood affections; but abiding in us, and that not as it doth in hypocrites, but as it is in Christ Jesus, without measure, both Spirit and Graces, so it abides in us in measure: in Him as the fountain, in us as the vessels, from whose fullness, we receive the same. So that by oil is not meant the external Principle of all Life, the Lord Jesus having Spirit and Grace enough, but keeping our hearts empty of it: but the Lord Jesus in us, who is not in us, but by his Spirit, even the Spirit of Life, from whence all our actions spring, and from which oil our lamp burns. This therefore I say, the Profession of the faithful, springs not from outward motives, or principles of motion, as the actions of hypocrites; sometimes sudden praise, sometimes gain, sometimes fears, sometimes fleshly hopes, sometimes sudden conceit and fancy, some times irruption and rushings of the Spirit upon them; but there is a spring within, there is a life within; there is oil in the Vessel to fill the lamp, and so hence it ⟨p. 173⟩burns. Eph. 2. 1. You hath he quickened, who were dead in sins, i. e. you were held as fast under the power of your sins, as a dead man is under the bonds of death: but now in the room of that death, there is the Spirit of life, and the life of the Spirit. Now life is an inward principle of motion, of any thing in its own place; as the sun, and trees, and grass, and cattle. You may take a stone, or millstone, or wheel, and move it, yet they have no life, because this is not from an inward Principle so: hypocrites may be acted, and moved by the great power of the Spirit in an Ordinance, yet not living but dead still. John 4. 14. the water (which is the Spirit) is a spring of living water in him. Cisterns may have water in them, but no spring that is running winter and summer. 1 John 3. 9. This is called the seed remaining in him: which is that new creation, new birth, which the verse it self expounds, so that he cannot sin; it is against his nature, now he cannot be a sin-maker. Balaam could not curse the people of God; and many cannot do as others do. Why, is it, because they are born of God? No, but from some other respects: and hence,