November 12

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.—James 1:8.

WHEN Saul, out of the force of natural ingenuity, did, upon the evidence of David's integrity, who slew him not when the Lord delivered him into his hands,—relent for the time and weep, and acknowledge his righteousness above his own, he spake all this in earnest, as he thought, and yet we find, that he afterwards returned to pursue him again, and was once more, by the experience of David's innocency, reduced unto the same acknowledgment. The people, in one place, would have made Christ a king, so much did they seem to honor him; and yet, at another time, when they were over-pliable and unresolved in their affections, were wrought upon by the subtle Pharisees, and they cried against him, as against a slave, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

So it may be in the general services of God; men may have wishings and desirings, and good liking to the truth, and some faint and floating resolutions to pursue it,—which yet have no firm root, nor proceeding from the whole bent of the heart, from a thorough mortification of sin and evidence of grace, but from such weak and wavering principles, as may be perturbed by every new temptation,—like letters written in sand, they vanish away like a morning dew, and leave the heart as hard and scorched as it was before. The young man, whom Christ loved, came in a sad and serious manner to learn of him the way to heaven: and yet we find there were secret reservations, which he had not discerned in himself; upon discovery whereof by Christ he was discouraged, and repented of his resolution. The apostle speaks of a "repentance not to be repented of," which hath firm, solid, and permanent reasons to support it: therein secretly intimating that there is likewise a repentance, which, rising out of an incomplete will, and admitting certain secret and undiscerned reservations, doth, upon the appearance of them, flag and fall away, and leave the unfaithful heart to repent of its repentance.

St. James tells us, that "a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," never uniform nor constant to any rules. Now this division of the mind stands thus:—The heart, on the one side, is taken up with the pleasures of sin for the present; and, on the other, with the desires of salvation for the future: and now according as the workings and representations of the one or the other, are at the time more fresh and predominant, in like manner is sin, for that time, either cherished or suppressed. Many men at a good sermon, when the matter is fresh and newly presented, while they are looking at their face in the glass; or in any extremity of sickness, when the provisions of lust do not relish for the present, when they have none but thoughts of salvation to depend upon, are very resolute to make promises, vows, and professions of better living: but when the pleasures of sin grow strong to present themselves again, they return, like a man recovered from an ague, with more relish and greediness to their lusts again:—as water which hath been stopped for a while, rushes with the more violence, when its passages are opened.

A double heart is like the bowls of a scale; according as more weight is put into one or other, so are they indifferently overruled unto either motion, up or down. When I see a vapor ascend out of the earth into the air, why should I not think that it will never leave rising, till it get up to heaven? and yet because the motion is not natural, but caused either by an expulsion from a heat within, or by attraction from a heat without, when the cause of that ascent is abated, and the matter gathers together in a thicker consistence, it grows heavy and falls down again. Even such is the affection of those faint and unresolved desires in men, who, like Agrippa, are but "half-persuaded" to believe in Christ.

It is good that the heart be established with grace. And happy are they, who can say with David, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise."