James 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. |
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