time how many fair blossoms wither! how many are blown off from the tree by storms and tempests! and how many, through their unbelief, are found rotten at the core! Verily, it is rather the gleanings, than the harvest, that is brought home to reward the toil that has been bestowed upon them ; so many " turn back unto perdition, and so few believe to the saving of the soul."
But it may here be asked, Are we in no case to bend to circumstances? Did not St. Paul himself diversify his modes of conduct, sometimes complying with Jewish rites, which at other times he declared to have been utterly abolished ? Yea, was he not of so accommodating a disposition, that he became all things to all men, and acted as a Jew or as a Gentile, according to the society with which he mixed ? Yes ; he did so : but there is this great difference between his conduct and that of a double-minded man : what Paul did, he did for the benefit of others : but the compliances of the double-minded man are only for the purpose of preventing evil to himself. His compliances too were only in things of perfect indifference: he would not have been guilty of denying or dishonouring the Saviour on any account : but the double-minded man cares not what dishonour he brings on the Gospel, provided he may but escape the evils with which he is menaced for his adherence to it. He is " like the wave," now raised, now depressed, and driven hither and thither as the wind impels it ; whilst the upright soul is as the rock, which, amidst all the storms and tempests that assail it, is unshaken and unmoved.]
Let us learn then from hence,
1. The vast importance of self-examination —
[Men do not easily see their own duplicity. " The heart is deceitful above all things," and readily persuades us, that our doubtful confidence in God, and our partial obedience to him, are all that is required of us. But God discerns the inmost recesses of the heart, and sees there all the latent workings of worldliness and unbelief: nor will he at the last day approve of any but those whom he can attest to have been " Israelites indeed, and without guile." As for " the fearful and unbelieving," he will assign to them no other portion than " the lake that burnetii with fire and brimstone0." O let us fear, lest, after all our profession, " our religion prove vain," and we be found to have " deceived our own souls p."]
2. The indispensable necessity of being " renewed
in the spirit of our minds" —
[Never, till that takes place, shall we possess " the single eyeq," and walk before God in one undeviating path of holy
0 Rev. xxi. 8. p Jam. i. 26. i Matt. vi. 23, 24.