The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied

3. You may have not only outward acts, but for a time inward lusts quenched, that a man hath no mind nor heart to any sinful way, nor to the dearest sins he hath lived in, whilst horror lies upon him. As in Judas, when God did hea• his Conscience, his lust, after his Bag was gone, he had more mind to an halter; And hence flings away his pieces of silver, and innocent blood lies heavy. Oh •he mercy of a Christ that I have slighted! He thought he might have had his money and Christ escaped with his life, and his sin pardoned afterward. And hence its said, Mat. 27. 3. When he saw he was condemned, he repented, and as a man not worthy to live in his own thoughts, he goes and hangs himself. 'Tis with the soul as with water, all the cold may be gone, but the native Principle of cold remains still. You may remove the burning of lusts, not the blackness of nature, from a carnal heart, and the ground holds, nature is not changed. This I say an unregenerate man may have, but yet never find this change of nature, where the power of sin lies: change of Conscience from security to terror, change of life from profaneness, and civility, and fashions of the world, to escape pollutions thereof; change of lusts, nay quenching them for a time; but the nature is never changed in the best Hypocrite that ever was. As 2 Pet. 2. 19, 20. Th•• were washed, but never from their […] nature; And here they ever fail, Prov. 30. 12. There is a generation clean in their own eyes, yet not washed from their filthiness. 2 Tim. 2. 18, 19, 21. Alexander fell, and Hymeneus; they talked of the glorious estate of Saints, and that here was all the resurrection that is to be expected; and i• seems it was such a fall of such persons that many stumbled, and said, How shall we know who are the Lords? Doubtless we may fall. No, the foundation remains sure, and the Lord knows who are his. They were none of his all that time, and let all that profess Christ depart from iniquity, for he that purgeth himself shall be a Vessel of honour. And therefore read through all the Scripture, constantly never any Hypocrites but they had this brand,