The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied

SECT. I.

1 Those that never were in bitterness and sorrow of heart for the loss of God.¹ For these two things are as clear as the Sun. 1. That the loss of God is the greatest loss; for 'tis the utmost and last plague upon the damned in Hell: My Comforts, my Friends, Means, Heaven is gone, but if God were mine, I could be comforted; No, God is gone: Hence no sorrow for any loss so much as for this. Saul, 1 Sam. 28. 15. God is departed from me. Hence sore distressed. Nay, the Lord Jesus when the Father departed for a time, and he knew he would return and visit him, cried out, My God why hast thou forsaken me? 2. That all men living have lost God, Isa. 59. 1, 2. Psal. 58. 3. The wicked go astray from their womb. Now I would demand why men either see no loss at all, or if they do, have not so much Grace as the damned in Hell, to mourn bitterly for it, so as nothing can comfort them, or if they do, they are soon eased and quieted before the Lord returns? Why surely here is the great cause of it, they have some other thing to ease their hearts in the want and loss of God, Jer. 2. 13, 14. Men must have water to drink, why do men live from the fountain, go not to it, nay not know it? Because they have broken pits, and wells at their own doors: So here. And hence the damned that have lived at ease here all their life time, as soon as ever dead, then they cry out of the loss of God, when 'tis too late, because while they lived, they had somewhat to ease themselves withal. And hence many that have lived long with convinced Spirits and guilty Consciences, when they come to die, then they are in perplexities of mind, agonies of heart, insomuch as their sweat trickles like water from them, and their doleful outcries for loss of time, strike to the hearts of all that come near them. Oh! God is gone, because now all comforts which were their Gods, and in stead of God before, have taken their final leave of them. Search your hearts therefore all you that hear me this day. Wast never troubled yet? Yes, I have lost my health, my child, my husband, my goods, and this hath troubled me: But tell me, Didst never feel a loss of God blessed for ever? loss of his light, his sweetness, his love, his fellowship, his presence, &c. and this hath been thy intolerable load? Or if thou hast felt it, hast thou sought and found him?