The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied

So if you ask a believer that question, How do you know you are loved? Is it good to answer with Christ, I am his sleep, for whom he hath laid down his life, when I was lost an went astray. But how do you know that? Is he now to answ•• like Christ, by these properties wrought in me, or no? If you say, No, because all these an hypocrite may have, then the Lord Jesus hath done very weakly in describing his own sheep, by such properties to be his, which discover them no more than so: Its true an hypocrite hath something like all these, but not these indeed. If you say, yes, then a man may know his blessed estate by these. The promise is, Prov. 8. 17. I love them that love me. But how do you know you love the Lord? There is the question, If Satan and blind carnal reason ask this question, you will be filled with accusations, and never satisfy them; for he that accused Job to Gods face, will much more to their own faces, accuse Saints of hypocrisy. If uncharitable men that never had the love of Christ abiding in their hearts, you will never satisfy them; but if the Lord ask the question in his Word, hold there, and the work is so clear, that though there hath been much decay, yet after recovery, the soul dares eye the Sun, and say, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee, John 21. 17. Hence by this work you may come to know your safe estate.

So if you ask a believer that question, How do you know you are loved? Is it good to answer with Christ, I am his sleep, for whom he hath laid down his life, when I was lost an went astray. But how do you know that? Is he now to answ•• like Christ, by these properties wrought in me, or no? If you say, No, because all these an hypocrite may have, then the Lord Jesus hath done very weakly in describing his own sheep, by such properties to be his, which discover them no more than so: Its true an hypocrite hath somthing like all these, but not these indeed. If you say, yes, then a man may know his blessed estate by these. The promise is, Prov. 8. 17. I love them that love me. But how do you know you love the Lord? There is the question, If Satan and blind carnal reason ask this question, you will be filled with accusations, and never satisfie them; for he that accused Iob to Gods face, will much more to their own faces, accuse Saints of hypocrisie. If uncharitable men that never had the love of Christ abiding in their hearts, you will never satisfie them; but if the Lord ask the question in his Word, hold there, and the work is so clear, that though there hath been much decay, yet after recovery, the soul dares eye the Sun, and say, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee,