THE CHARACTER OF ONE WHO IS IRRESOLUTE AND UNFIXED IN HIS LEADING VIEWS AND DESIRES.
1. His understanding is various.
2. He acts as if he had two wills.
3. His affections are spiritual or carnal, serious or sensual, heavenly or worldly, just as the two contrary principles of flesh and spirit prevail in him, which alternately sway the mind, and of which alternate sway this variableness of temper is the certain effect.
II. THE EFFECT OF THIS UNHAPPY TEMPER.
1. The double-minded man is inconstant in his purposes and pursuits.
2. Another effect of such a divided heart is that it can seldom in good earnest fall in with the dictates of conscience in the plainest instances of duty.
3. The double-minded man is easily overcome in an hour of temptation.
Lessons:
1. There is no man but what hath, and must have, some leading views in life, some grand point at which he aims, and to which he makes almost all his other views subservient.
2. Common understanding and reason will lead a man to examine what this great end is that he drives at.
3. Every man, as a reasonable creature, endowed by his Maker with reflection and understanding, should take special care that his governing aims be right.
4. Before we can know what ought to be our great and governing views, we must know what we are and what we are designed for.
5. That to serve and please and fear that great God that gave us being is our great concern, and ought at all times to be our governing view, as reasonable creatures born for immortality. (John Mason, M. A.)
The double-minded man
If reason be compared to the helm of a ship, the passions are the sails. It was necessary that we should be impelled to act, as well as that our actions should be duly regulated: and that is the most perfect state of human nature in which the guidance of the enlightened judgment is seconded by a steady and generous ardour. The “double-minded man” may be considered as divided in his judgment, and divided in his inclination. Divided in judgment, having thought, but thought superficially, upon the concurrent evidences of religious truth, “he is carried about with every wind of doctrine.” Hence the light which guides him is not a single and steady, but a wandering and bewildering, light. Divided in inclination, not averse to receive good impressions, yet unapt to retain them. In consequence of these internal changes, the double-minded man is equally changeable in his outward conduct, “unstable in all his ways”; and as the good or evil principle prevails, he is either intent on repairing his faults and advancing towards perfection, or he becomes the slave of his sins, injurious to his fellow creatures and a rebel to his God. Such is the character of “the double-minded man” in the general view.
1. Let us examine it as it appears to others. To the eminently good he is an object of humiliating compassion; to the bad, of derision. Moreover, every change of conduct adds his own testimony to the suffrage of the world, either that his understanding is so weak as to be always wavering between truth and error; or that his resolution is so frail as to fluctuate incessantly between good and evil, clearly discerned and acknowledged by himself to be so. Like a child, playing on the brink of a precipice (overhung with fruits and flowers), now struck with the danger, now tempted by the beauty and the fragrance; trembling, yet lingering, whether he recede from or advance to his destruction; presenting an image of most pitiable imbecility. His mind is torn by struggling passions; his life, a scene of conflict, that one may compare to civil war, in which rival parties, alternately defeated and victorious, inflict and suffer reciprocal calamities; and whichsoever prevails, nothing is to be seen but the burning of towns, the laying waste of provinces, confusion and desolation on every side. Alas, when a man is conscious of breaking through the secret resolutions of his own mind, of violating injunctions to which he has been professing perpetual obedience, renewing transgressions which he has been lamenting in anguish, which will shortly make him abhor himself, which will possibly fill up the measure of his guilt and seal his doom--what a scene of internal misery to be conscious, while knowing his duty, of wanting spirit and resolution to perform it; to possess an understanding, yet violate its best dictates; to have a heart, yet transgress its purest sentiments; to hear the voice of conscience and of God recalling him from ruin, yet finding himself hurried on by the headstrong fury of his passions--what must be the feelings of this man, who has endured so lately the pangs of guilt, who has been in the very crisis of a blessed change, who had begun to taste the sweets of liberty, yet is ensnared again--what must his feelings be while renewing and perpetuating his ignominious bondage!
2. Thus unhappy is the double-minded man in his own eyes: we are now to consider him with respect to his moral worth--his character in the sight of God. It is not a wavering, divided temper and conduct which comes within the line of salvation marked out by the gospel: “If ye continue in My Word” (says Jesus Christ Himself), “then are ye My disciples indeed”; and again, “No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” As guilt is the poison of the soul, so repentance is its cure: the double-minded man betakes himself alternately to the poison and to the remedy. If such treatment would be fatal to the bodily constitution, how much more to the constitution of the mind, which, if it do not fix in virtue, must sink into the reverse, while the passions and appetites are rather inflamed than moderated by temporary and ineffectual restraints, and all those finer principles which should hold them in subjection are gradually impaired and become callous by frequent injuries--every virtuous effort grows weaker and weaker, till it yieldsmechanically to every impulse of desire, and the whole mind becomes at length blind to danger, deaf to counsel, and dead to the sense of goodness. In this melancholy state, what hope of moral recovery can remain? Those who have lost sight of reason in the career of passion, or who have even long slumbered in a course of stupid unthinking wickedness, may still be awakened; and strong motives, with the aid of strenuous exertion, may still open some glimmering prospect of recovery. But when reason, conscience, religion, have tried their utmost, but in vain, what more remains to be done? (P. Houghton.)
A double-minded man
The word signifies one that has two souls; and so it may imply--
1. A hypocrite (Jam_4:8). As Theophrastus saith of the partridges of Paphlagonia, that they had two hearts, so every hypocrite hath two souls. As I remember, I have read of a profane wretch that bragged he had two souls in one body, one for God and the other for anything.
2. It implieth one that is distracted and divided in his thoughts, floating between two different ways and opinions, as if he had two minds or two souls.
3. And, more expressly to the context, it may note those whose minds were tossed to and fro with various and uncertain motions; now lifted up with a billow of presumption, then cast down in a gulf of despair, being divided between hopes and fears concerning their acceptance with God.
1. That unbelieving hypocrites are men of a double mind; they want the conduct of the Spirit, and are led by their own affections, and therefore cannot be settled: fear, the love of the world, carnal hopes and interests, draw them hither and thither, for they have no certain guide and rule. This double mind in carnal men bewrayeth itself two ways--in their hopes and their opinions.
(1) In their hopes they are distracted between expectation and jealousy, doubts and fears; now full of confidence in their prayers, and anon breathing forth nothing but sorrow and despair; and possibly that may be one reason why the Psalmist compareth the wicked to chaff (Psa_1:4), because they have no firm stay and subsistence, but are driven to and fro by various and uncertain motions, leading their lives by guess, rather than any sure aim.
(2) In their opinions hypocrites usually waver and hang in suspense, being distracted between conscience and carnal affections; their affections carry them to Baal, their consciences to God.
2. That doubtfulness of mind is the cause of uncertainty in our lives and conversation. Their minds are double, and therefore their ways are unstable. For our actions do oft bear the resemblance of our thoughts, and the heart not being fixed, the life is very uncertain. The note holdeth good in two cases.
(1) In fixing the heart in the hopes of the gospel.
(2) In fixing the heart in the doctrine of the gospel; as faith sometimes implieth the doctrine which is believed, sometimes the grace by which we do believe.
A certain expectation of the hopes of the gospel produceth obedience, and a certain belief of the doctrine of the gospel produceth constancy.
1. None walk so evenly with God as they that are assured of the love of God. Faith is the mother of obedience, and sureness of trust maketh way for strictness of life.
2. None are so constant in the profession of any truth as they that are convinced and assured of the grounds of it. (T. Manton.)
Double-mindedness
I. WE HAVE TO OBSERVE ON THE MISERABLE DISADVANTAGE, INEFFICIENCY, AND, WE MAY SAY, WORTHLESSNESS, OF SUCH A STATE OF MIND FOR ANYTHING GREAT AND GOOD. “Double-minded,” “unstable in all” things. Now, connect this with the consideration of the feebleness of the human powers at the best. Let those powers be in their best order, and exerted in the most steady, constant, and consistent manner possible, and even then, how slow and toilsome is the progress to any good! The most vigorous have mourned and been mortified, to see how little they had done: the most determined servants of God have confessed that they were “unprofitable servants.” Again, connect the idea of this character with that of the shortness of life; short, in the most protracted instances, shorter still, in the far greater number. And how much of this inevitably consumed in little cares and occupations, and, in many instances, in grievances, pains, and languor! A man deliberating and perplexing and confounding his designs, and life still hastening on; prosecuting a purpose a little while, and then, hesitating, stopping, life still going on! abandoning his design--life all the while passing away’. Think, again, what dishonour and ignominy it is, for a man to be thus, as it were, his own opponent and frustrator. There is enough to obstruct him, from without, were he ever so vigorously prepared for the great operations of duty. But he has within him the causes of defeat. He cannot put in order the active principles and powers within the citadel of his soul, to sally out in force against the external difficulties and opposition. He has there opinion dissenting from opinion, motive disagreeing with motive, passion conflicting with passion, purpose thwarting purpose. But to carry the view outward; this double-minded man, who has no simplicity and unity of purpose, think how unfortunate is his case, on account of the multiplicity of things there will be to distract his purposes, and frustrate his exertions. In this “double” condition of mind he is liable to be arrested by a great number of things on either side.
II. But we may previously observe that there are very many men exempt from this miserable weakness, BY BEING THE SUBJECTS OF SOMETHING STILL WORSE. There is many a sinner that betrays no double-mindedness. He is actuated wholly, steadily, constantly, by some one predominant evil. The man of all-grasping ambition, the complete sensualist, the insane lover of money. And these, in their way, are most worthy to be held up as examples to those who profess to be, or to wish to be, devoted to better things. “Look at them,” we would say to the unstable, double-minded man--“look at them and be ashamed!” In representing the character of our text, in some of its most usual forms, we may note that there is perhaps some difference between a double-mindedness of variableness, fluctuation, fickleness, and that of inconsistency or self-contradiction. But we would rather direct the attention to that doable-mindedness which endeavours, in the habitual course of life, to combine irreconcilable things. And how many exemplify this in the manner in which their minds are affected between the present and the future! A predominance of regard to the great and endless future is indispensable to the happy order of the human soul. But in some minds this concern rather harasses than predominates--it cannot govern, but will not depart. And as it will not, it is attempted to be brought into some kind of compromise with the prevailing interest about the present objects. There is the warning thought, “These present objects will soon be no longer mine--I must leave them! and what will be the state of my soul elsewhere?” And there is terrible authority in this thought. It forces its demand on the conscience of such a man. There are, therefore, some serious thoughts; some employments of a religious kind; some abstinences and self-denials; some prayers, however constrained. And this miserably embitters the interest of the present and temporal objects. Still the heart cannot, cannot let these objects sink down to the subordinate rank, and admit the predominance of the grand future ones. This miserable double-mindedness distracts the tenor of a man’s life. He goes on hesitating, embarrassed, impeded, and only succeeds in going wrong 1 It is much the same thing, we have said already, when we exemplify the character, denominated in the text, in the case of a man who approves some great, general, good object, but is influenced by a selfish interest against it. This private interest rises up against all his convictions and better wishes and sympathies, and determines him to oppose the thing he pronounces so good. But yet, not without a painful consciousness of inconsistency, which his utmost efforts cannot reconcile, and which gives a wavering “unstable” character to his course of proceeding. See, again, the character in the text exemplified in the case of a man harassed between the dictates of his own judgment and conscience, on the one side, and the consideration of how he will be accounted of in the world, on the other side. The attempted combination of things which cannot truly agree is exemplified in some who wish to carry an appearance and a profession of belonging to the Christians, the people of God, and at the same time are very desirous of being on the most favourable terms with worldly and irreligious society. We will only add to the description one more particular, and that of a doctrinal reference. There seems to be in some persons a “double-minded” apprehension of the meritorious cause of human salvation--a notion of some kind of distributive partition of the merit, between the sinful being himself and Jesus Christ. Now this must produce a painful perplexity and instability in a man’s experience, and in his religious exercises and efforts. For it can never be adjusted, on each side, how much. If the Redeemer will not, of mere free favour, furnish all for justification, where will He stop? If I am to contribute essentially, meritoriously, myself, what will suffice? by what rule is it to be estimated? Unstable, therefore, is such a man in his feelings, in his efforts, in his prayers.
III. WHAT IS THE REMEDY FOR ALL THIS? The great thing to quell all this mischief and conflict and wretchedness is to have one grand predominant sovereign purpose of life. And what can that be but to live for God and eternity? How gloriously this would crush the hateful strife! and bring us out free, in singleness of spirit, for the enterprise of immortality! The means conducive, under the Divine influence, to the establishment of this great predominant principle and power are most plain and obvious. Let the man who feels the plague of this internal dissension, let him look most deliberately, most resolutely, and, as in the sight of God, at the motives, the objects, the interests, which divide and baffle his spirit; and solemnly decide what it is that deserves to have the ascendency. And what he is losing all the while! losing the labour of his vital powers--spending his strength for nought; losing his time, the inestimable advantages for the attainment of the final good, the present happiness he might be enjoying, the benefits of the Redeemer’s work, the day of grace and salvation. By continuance, too, these worse contesting principles have habit on their side, the most infernal ally of evil principles, an angelic one of the good. And, lastly, as God is, if we may speak so, the supreme unity, simplicity, consistency, stability, in the universe, the soul must have a firm connection with Him, so as to be in a humble sense (what we should not venture to express, if His own Word had not) a “partaker of the Divine nature,” by His Spirit imparted, through the medium of the Redeemer. And then these opposing evil principles and powers in the soul will shrink in the strife, will no longer prevail, though they linger to struggle, will have received the touch of death, and will perish wholly and for ever when the spirit is at last set free from mortality and this infected world. (J. Foster.)
The double-minded man
He is one who is inconstant; he is changeable; he hath a mind to serve God and be saved, but he hath at the same time a mind also to satisfy his lusts; he would be eternally happy in the next world, but he would not quit the sensual pleasures of this; he is godly by fits and by intervals, but he is not so uniformly, and uninterruptedly; his religion hath its flows and its ebbs, its rises and its falls; now it grows, and presently again it decays. To give us a more lively image of this instability, which is the distinguishing mark of a double-minded man, our apostle paints him out to us by a familiar but elegant comparison, “He that wavereth is like to a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed.” The ground of this instability is the diversity of those principles upon which he acts; his heart is not pure and free from mixture, and therefore his actions are thus repugnant. He hath a double mind, and therefore nothing that he doth can be simple and uniform. To remove this inconsistency and incongruity, which there is betwixt what he at several times doth, his heart must be purified from all secular and low aims, and entirely be fixed on the choice of one single end, and steadily apply itself to the use of such means, as all jointly conspire to the attainment of that end. When we make the glory of God and the salvation of our souls our last and chief end; when we form no other designs that come in competition with this; when all our actions are so ordered as to have a proper tendency to this end, and do all agree with each other by agreeing together in this tendency, then have we that purity of heart which our apostle here enjoins. (Bp. Smalridge.)
The folly of double-mindedness
Should we observe a person at the same time taking aim at two different marks placed at a considerable distance, and much more, if they were placed diametrically opposite to one another, we must be more than ordinarily serious if such a sight did not move our spleen and provoke our laughter. And yet every whit as ridiculous is that person who proposes to himself such designs as do plainly interfere with each other. For is it not the height of folly to aim at any end which we are sure never to accomplish? And must not he that pursues opposite ends necessarily fall short of one of them? For will not all those means that contribute to the gaining one, hinder the attainment of the other? If the pleasures of this world are more suited to our natures; if they are more agreeable to our rational faculties; if they are more durable; if they are more perfect whilst they last; let us pursue these steadily, without troubling ourselves for anything beyond them. Let us not rob ourselves of any of the present satisfactions of this life, in expectation of lesser joys at a greater distance. Or if the pleasures of this world, though they do not exceed, yet are truly equal to the pleasures of the next; if, having weighed them together in an even balance, we find that neither of them turns the scale; then let us live at all adventures: where there is no room for preference, let us take either side, as it happens. Let us “set our affections on things above, or on things below”; be godly or profane; sober or intemperate; righteous or unjust; merciful or uncharitable, according as we are in humour. Let us practise some duties to comply with the motions of the Spirit, and commit some sins to gratify the lusts of the flesh; and having no certain haven where we would be, let us suffer our inclinations to run afloat, and to be tossed about to any point of the compass by every blast of wind. But if neither of these be the true state of our case, as, if the Christian religion be true, we are sure neither is; if the advantages and pleasures of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed; nay, farther, if the seeking of the things of this world, either more than the glories of the next, or equally with them, will shut us out of the kingdom of God; and if on the other side, to those who “first seek the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, these things shall be added” over and above; where there is such a vast disparity in the objects, where the dispute lies between the creature and the Creator, between finite and infinite, between momentary and eternal, there to be equally poised between such unequal objects; and, in short, for the want of a uniform pursuit of the better part, to lose both parts, is such a degree of folly as in speculation we could never have believed possible, had not the practice of men showed it to be very common. (Bp. Smalridge.)
The uneasiness of double-mindedness
When a mariner hath determined within himself what port to make to, and is secure that he is in the direct way which will bring him to that port, whatever ill accidents he meet with in his passage are in some measure made tolerable by the prospect he hath of arriving at the desired haven at last; but when he is tossed by contrary winds from one point to the other; when, in the words of the Psalmist, “he reels to and fro, and staggers like a drunken man, and is at his wits’ end,” because he knows not which way to steer his course, then must his soul needs be melted within him because of trouble. Now this is the unpleasant condition of a double-minded person: he is tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind. Sometimes the pleasures of this world appear amiable in his eyes, and he pursues them with great eagerness of soul; but these have nothing in them which will satisfy his desires; these either flying from him whilst he follows them, or vanishing away in the fruition; he hopes to find more solid contentment of mind in the practise of virtue and the duties of religion; but having not a true relish for these more refined pleasures, finding some hardships in his first entrance upon a holy life, and wanting resolution of mind to overcome them by patience, he quickly relapses into) his former wicked courses, and tries again the more beaten paths of vice; but still he is as far removed as ever he was from the attainment of true happiness, because he does not move towards it in a direct line, but, by going sometimes forwards and sometimes backwards, is at an equal distance from his journey’s end, after all his wearisome travel and pains, as he was when he at first set out. The heavenly minded person who pursues the paths of virtue with an even course finds in himself a fund of joy which is never to be exhausted, a spring of comfort and delight which never fails him (Psa_16:5). On the other side, the carnal-minded person who is uniform and consistent with himself in a constant course of sin; who hath got the conquest over his conscience, and is deaf to its loudest cries; who, finding the fetters of religion too burdensome, hath taken care to break these bonds asunder, and to cast away these cords from him, hath his share of pleasures, which he freely enjoys, without abatement or control. The double-minded person who pretends to be sometimes spiritual, and who at other times is carnal; who shares his affections betwixt the Creator and the creature; who sometimes obeys the laws of God to comply with the dictates of his conscience, and at other times disobeys God’s laws to gratify his sensual appetite, may perhaps propose to himself a double share of pleasure; and all that happiness which the spiritual and carnal person do separately divide between them, he may fondly hope to join together in one, and to enjoy at once. But whilst he aims at too much, he is in danger to lose all; whilst he claims more happiness than comes to his share, he forfeits what otherwise he might have fairly enjoyed; and, instead of uniting in one the different pleasures of a sensual and spiritual life, he will find by experience that he truly tastes neither. For the pleasures of sin are embittered by the remorses of conscience, whose checks he is not able wholly to silence; and, on the other side, that satisfaction of mind which he should reap from the consciousness of having done some things well is impaired by the sense of guilt which arises from his having done other things which he knows to be evil. There are several forbidden pleasures which a profligate, dissolute thorough-paced sinner, who hath no sense of shame, no fear of God, no strugglings of conscience to restrain him, doth without control freely indulge himself in; and these make up a great part of that happiness which he pitches upon as his portion. But the double-minded person who proposes to himself different ends, and pursues different courses, though he sometimes transgresses the lines of duty, dares not go great lengths in vice; he hath not so far got the mastery over his conscience but that there are several kinds and instances of sin at which he presently starts back and recoils; he is for keeping up an interest with two opposite parties, God and the world; and therefore is careful not to serve either, so far as to make the breach with the other utterly irreconcilable; and thus, for want of a perfect and uniform obedience, he loses those pleasures which the saints of God find in a religious life; and at the same time, for want of being thoroughly wicked, he debars himself from several sorts and degrees of pleasure which profligate sinners take very frequent and very large draughts of. And as through the restraint of conscience he dares not allow himself in several pleasures which notorious sinners liberally taste of, so in those which, through the prevalence of his lusts, he gives way to, he finds not all that relish which they do. For though he is so far wicked as not to resist a temptation when it is offered; yet he cloth not so much as the other entertain himself with the prospect of criminal pleasure before be enjoys it; his soul is not so wholly swallowed up with it whilst he enjoys it; and he doth not with so much contentment call it back and dwell upon it in his memory, and act it over again in his imagination after he has enjoyed it. (Bp. Smalridge.)
The sinfulness of double-mindedness
I. IT IS CONTRARY TO THAT LOVE OF GOD WHICH THE GOSPEL EXPRESSLY REQUIRES (Mat_22:35). Now, if the steadiness of our obedience depends upon the sincerity of our love of God; if nothing can seduce them from their duty, whose hearts are truly possessed with an ardent love of God; then will it follow, on the other side, that those whose obedience is partial and interrupted, who advance some steps in the paths of virtue, and after that depart back into sinful courses, are destitute of that superlative love of God which is the very basis of all religion, and the first and chief condition of our eternal salvation.
II. IT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THAT PERFECTION WHICH IS ANOTHER CONDITION OF THE GOSPEL COVENANT. Absolute perfection is not to be attained, and therefore repentance comes in to supply the want of it; but a sincere endeavour after perfection is possible; and he who sins with a resolution to repent is not sure that God will give him grace to repent in time of need. Now, if an endeavour after perfection, if doing the utmost we can do in “all things to keep a conscience void of offence,” is confessed on all hands to be the least that can be meant by that perfection which is the condition of our salvation, then must double-minded persons be in a very dangerous state who cannot pretend that they perform this condition. For can that person be said to use his utmost endeavours to be perfect who, though he resists some temptations, yet not only yields to but even invites others? Doth he do all he can do to approve himself to God who doth as many actions, which he knows to be displeasing to God, as he doth actions acceptable? Can he be thought in earnest to press forwards towards the mark whose retreats are equal to his advances? who is always in motion, but rids no ground; and who, after some years spent in a course of religion, is got no farther than when he at first set out? As well may he be thought a perfect scholar who, in that part of learning he professes, is ignorant of as many things as he knows; or that be deemed a perfect animal which, of those limbs it should have, wants as many as it hath, or which is destitute of as many organs of sense as it enjoys.
III. IT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THAT SINCERE FAITH UPON THE OBSERVANCE OF WHICH ON OUR PART WE EXPECT SALVATION, “if we examine the faith of a double-minded person, if we try it by its works, we shall not find it thus general and impartial. He finds gracious promises the gospel annexed to the performance of some duties, and these he pretends to discharge on purpose that he may inherit those precious promises; but he finds also severe threats denounced against some sins; and, notwithstanding these threats, he goes on in a constant habitual commission of them. Now, how is his performance of these duties a better proof that he heartily believes those promises than his voluntary transgressions are, that in his heart he disbelieves those threats? (Bp. Smalridge.)
Instability of the double-souled
A two-souled man is unsettled; “unstable in all ways.” His opinions are fluctuating; and so are his sentiments. Sometimes he is repenting of his sins, and sometimes he is repenting of his repentance. Sometimes the importance of the future overwhelms him, and sometimes he feels theft nothing is worth thinking of but the present. Such instability of sentiment must unsettle the believer. The man is sometimes as serene as a May morning, and sometimes as sweeping as a cyclone. You can never know how he will receive you, or how he will behave under certain circumstances. His instability imparts its changefulness to his countenance; while he is looking one way, his soul has gone another. His speech is ambiguous, his tone of voice wavering, his utterance now very rapid and now very slow. Sometimes he answers offhand and without reflection, and then he requires so much time to consider that the opportunity for speech has passed. He is untrustworthy in every department of life. That man cannot receive anything of the Lord. He cannot hold his hand long enough to have anything placed therein. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
