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We have muddled about in blood and dirt and secondary issues long enough. We in Britain are not clear-minded, I would point out, because we are double-minded. No good end is served by trying to ignore in the fancied interests of "unity" a division of spirit and intention that trips us up at every step.
How often the side we take even in the most momentous matters is decided by the most unworthy motives and the most contemptible considerations! Unstable as water, Reuben shall not excel. Double-minded men, we, like Jacob's first-born, are unstable in all our ways. We have no anchor, or, what anchor we sometimes have soon slips. We have no fixed pole-star by which to steer our life.
How can you advance a step in your after and more extended course till the first difficulty is overcome? You need faith, and "a double-minded man," says St. James, "is unstable in all his ways." Moreover, be not too sure that all who show an inclination to ridicule you, feel exactly as they say. They speak with the loudest speaker; speak you boldly, and they will speak with you.
How, for the sake of vanity and patronage, I had consented to hide the truth about their rights their wrongs. And so on through weary weeks of moping melancholy "a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways?" At last, Mackaye, who, as I found afterwards, had been watching all along my altered mood, contrived to worm my secret out of me.
They lie at the mercy of every foe, of every passion, of every change. Without the pilotage of principle, they know not what course to take, and are every moment in danger of a fatal wreck. "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed! ... A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."
As for thy vanity, I shall so overrule it that double-minded men about thee shall make thee and thy vanity their sport, their jest, and their prey.
That moment was over, and now he had bidden his wife good-by and was riding through the cold gray mist to do his weary, hopeless best for an obstinate, foolish, impracticable king, and to put some heart, if it were possible, into a dwindling handful of unprincipled, self-seeking, double-minded men. The day was full of omens, and they were all against him.
His conduct will be variously interpreted, and to attempt to analyse the motives of a double-minded man is always a hazardous experiment; but a comparison of date, the character of Clement himself, the circumstances in which he was placed, and the retrospective evidence from after events, points almost necessarily to but one interpretation.
The main point here is simultaneousness of the two growths. This man is, as James calls him, a 'double-minded man. He is trying to grow both corn and thorn on the same soil. He has some religion, but not enough to make thorough work of it. He is endeavouring to ride on two horses at once.
"If ye're wholly the Lord's wholly, mind, ye'll not like aught but what the Lord likes; ye'll know what to ask for, and ye'll know the Lord will give it to you; that is, if ye want it enough. But a 'double-minded man is unstable in all his ways; and his prayers can't hit the mark, no more than a gun that's twisted when it's going off."
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