The Character of the Worldling
“Who mind earthly things.”
The pencil of inspiration, by one rapid sweep, often depicts a whole class of human souls. In the present instance, the view given of ungodly men, in a single fearful aspect, is important enough to be severed from its most interesting context, and made the object of our profound consideration. The apostle, with deep Christian feeling, is here describing the people of the world. He closes this description with the hint which I have selected. It is the portrait of all unrenewed persons, however widely they may differ in other respects. They mind earthly things. The word is peculiar in its force; they set their minds upon earthly things, think of
* New York, October 8, 1852.
them, think much of them, yea, constantly and supremely. Earthly things, and not heavenly, fill their minds and occupy their regard and affections. And this charge, which to careless, unenhghtened souls may seem quite a trifling one, is so grave in Paul’s estimation, that it moves him to tears, and he weeps while he writes. It is this minding of earthly things, as characteristic of unbelieving men, which we are about briefly to consider.
Readers of the Scriptures have observed that two great opposing spheres are often held up to view; one as engaging the hearts of the ungodly and one of the godly. They are the earth and heaven, verses 19, 20, this world and the world to come; things visible and things invisible; the present and the future; the world and Christ; Mammon and God. All these are the same in substance; and the contrast or opposition is complete and irreconcilable. According to these two sets of objects, or two worlds as we may call them, the whole race of men is divided into two portions; the World, an expressive term for all that is opposed to God and the Church, or people of the living God.
It may as clearly be presumed that the noble creature whom we call man, was not made to spend his powers on passing sublunary things, as that he was not made to browse with the ox or grovel with the serpent. A consideration of his powers shows that he was destined for eternity and for God. Revelation has for its great end to set before him the objects which are suited to these capacities. Their residence in the present life is a period of grace, in which men under the gospel are invited to rise from earthly towards heavenly things; and it is the principal work of the Holy Spirit to invite, wm and attract men to the pursuit and enjoyment of spiritual realities.
Notwithstanding which, we have before us the continual spectacle of the majority of mankind worshipping the creature, forgetting God, and living for the present fleeting hour. For them, heaven and hell, the law and its satisfaction, eternity and God, are as though they were not; sending forth no moulding influence. For them, the present world is heaven enough, if they could only make it sure; and they would rejoice in a decree, which should fix their abode here forever. Let us look a little more closely at this side of our conunon human nature.
It requires but a glance at the busy crowds around us to perceive that the great things of the soul and of eternity do not absorb their chief interest. Whether you judge them by their words or their company, by what they do or leave undone, you find them to be “of the earth, earthy.” This is the more striking, when you contrast with it their high-wrought zeal in all that concerns the present life. When personal honour and applause or family distinction are in view, no labour seems too great; and under the goad of fashionable rivalry, they expend language, time, and even thousands of money, which proves too well how much they are in earnest. In this race they will suffer none to leave them behind; and we have lived to see high professors in the church, whose manner of household life, equipage, and entertainments, leave us marveUing what those pomps and vanities of the world can be, which they have renounced as followers of Christ, or where we are to look for cross-bearing, godly simplicity, and self-denial. Our Lord certainly had a meaning when he set forth the imminent peril to the soul, which comes from worldly riches; and I suppose the wealth against which he warned his followers, was less than that of many who hear me, but who feel no danger. The way in which worldly possessions jeopard the soul, is by occupying the affections, leading the heart away from God and divine things, to take its contentment in the good things of this life. This is serving Mammon; making a god of present things; giving the supreme regard to that which is perishing; and it is declared to be inconsistent with the love of God. The minister of the gospel, as one ‘* who must give account,” must not shun to exhibit this danger to those who are possessed of worldly goods. Whether they will hear or forbear, his commission is explicit: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” The trusting in riches, here intended, is the setting of the mind on them as the source of comfort; making them a staff and stay; relying on them, as a provision against trouble; indulging a secret complacency in them, as making us better than others, who have lost them or have never attained them; and flattering ourselves at the supposed security of om own acquisitions, as compared with the precarious fortunes of others. Those who so live, whether in the church or out of it, are minding earthly things and estranging their hearts from the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy.
But it would be unwise to limit our view of the earthliness of worldly riches to the use which is made of them while actually possessed. A large part of the human family is engaged in the hot pursuit; some with success, and many more with disappointment. This variety in the result makes no difference, however, in the temper of mind with which the seeming goal is sought. We need only open our eyes, at mid- day, in any great commercial city, to learn that this is the prime mover in all the complex and indescribable commotion of human business. Mistake me not; I am not denouncing activity in business, or even the pursuit of wealth, simply considered. As a chief instrument of happiness in this life, it may be sought in different degrees and from different motives; moderately or immoderately; selfishly or benevolently; with an entire absorption in the creature, or with an hourly reference of all to God. But I will affirm, and none will soberly deny it, that, as a matter of fact, the multitude, the majority, the mass of men thus engaged day and night with impetuous, feverish, often delirious haste, are actu-
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ated by no impulses but those which spring from the creature, and thus that they mind earthly things. This is what they live for; for this they make their sacrifices and run their risks. This occupies their thoughts, at rising, and as they hurry through the great emporium, at desks and places of trade, in the retirement of the evening and the intervals of night. It is this which excludes prayer, meditation, the Scriptures, the care of the soul, the seekuig of Christ’s kingdom and righteousness. The desire is not quenched by successes. No philosopher has discovered the point at which insatiable avarice can consent to admit that it is rich enough. We know of no principle recognised by the world on this point, but this, that every man must be as rich as he can. Great accumulations do but stimulate the appetite for more, and the close of life, instead of being devoted to quiet preparation for death and eternity, is frequently harassed by more vexing cares of acquisition than its youthful dawn. The point of the charge is that God is shut out. For this no reasonable and immortal creature can frame an apology. He drives a hazardous bargain who barters away his opportunity of salvation. “For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul!” Yet look abroad, and behold the face of society. The broad and thronged avenue is filled with human beings, rushing towards the gates of death, all engrossed in that which perishes even while it is obtained. We need no longer wonder that the church dwindles, and that few are added to the company of
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God’s people. There is a contagion in the evil, and every day fresh thousands yield themselves to the same impulse. Unless God break the spell, unless he seize upon them by the strong hand of the Spirit, these deluded beings will die as they have lived, and, plunging into a state whither they can carry no earthly gains, will learn by experience what it is to gain the world and lose their own souls.
The brief description of the text includes the lovers of pleasure. Either in the pauses of business, or as their whole employment, great numbers of persons spend their time in seeking amusement, recreation, the satisfying of curiosity, appetite or passion. This host includes most who are in youth, but many also who tread on the confines of age. It needs no laboured argument to show that these mind earthly things. They are living as though they had no souls. They are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. It is common to speak of such as amiable and good-natured, or as injuring none but themselves. But no persons are more intensely selfish, than the confirmed devotees of pleasure. Their motto is. Who will show us any good? What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed? There are none more bound to the earth. There is no temper more incompatible with religion, or with the serious pursuit of it. Hence the reiterated injunctions of our Lord to those who would follow him, to leave all, to deny themselves, and to take up the cross daily. Hence also the striking admonitory pictures of the rich man clad in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day; of the young ruler, who went away sorrowful; and of him who said to his soul, “Take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” The entertainments and pleasures of an easy life destroy tens of thousands, who nevertheless never fall into open and flagrant vices. Satan’s end is sufficiently gained, when, by immersing them in thoughts of the present world, he can keep them away from all consideration of eternal things.
What a horrid fraud Satan is practising on the church, in regard to the daughters of the covenant! In fashionable circles — dare I name them Christian — the years where girlhood merges into maturity are frequently sold to the adversary. The young American woman is taught to deem herself a goddess. If there be wealth, if there be accomplishment, if there be beauty, almost a miracle seems necessary to prevent the loss of the soul. Behold her pass from the pedestal to the altar. The charming victim is decked for sacrifice. Every breath that comes to her is incense. Her very studies are to fit her for admiration. Day and night the gay but wretched maiden is taught to think of self and selfish pleasures. Till some Lenten fashion of solemnity interrupt the whirl, the season is too short for the engagements. Grave parents shake their heads at magnificent apparel, costly gems, night turned into day, dances at which Romans would have blushed, pale cheeks, bending frames, threatened decay; and yet they allow and submit. And thus that sex, which ought to shew the sweet unselfish innocency of a holy youth, is carried to the overheated temples of Pleasure. Thus the so-called Christian verifies the apostle’s maxim, “She that hveth in pleasure is dead while she hveth.”
But it is needless to classify worldlings. Their number is so great that we can scarcely move without encountering them; and it is well if we do not find ourselves infected with the same disease. The god of this world has brought them under his incantation, by blinding their minds. He magnifies to their apprehensions the gains and exaltations of sensible things; he colours the pleasures of life; he shuts out the future, the spiritual and the divine. That ardour with which they nm their short career, would be worthy of a better object. Alas for them! they are building on the sea-sand, and the tempestuous waves will soon overwhelm their confidence.
Let me very earnestly put it to the mind and conscience of every hearer, whether he belongs to this class or not. The Scriptures divide the aggregate of all that the human soul can pursue with desire into two great worlds, the earthly and the heavenly. Every man living is intent on one or the other; and no man can attain both. There can be no compromise. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Ye cannot mind earthly things, and at the same time mind heavenly things. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Nay, he that loves the world is at enmity vnih God.
So imich is at stake, that you cannot be too earnest in the self-examination. Here you may bring your inward character to a test. Ask not whether you have at some former period been admitted to the external church; thousands have been thus admitted, without any change of nature. But ask, which of these two worlds has your heart? Are you living under the power of the world to come? Does its awful shadow fall across your path, and give solemnity to your purposes? Do you go about the business of every day imder the deep impression that all these things are perishing, that this is not your rest, that presently God your Judge, whose penetrating eye is always upon you, will call you hence, to give an account of the deeds done in the body? Are you seeking a home and kingdom which cannot be moved? Is your treasure laid up in heaven, and is your heart there? Do you look for your choicest gratifications in divine things, in heavenly truth, and in communion with God? Are you jealous of every thing, however usual or valuable among men, which removes your thoughts from the great invisible world in which your true possessions lie? And do you feel yourself a pilgrim, who can enjoy no settled and satisfying rest till you reach a world from which sin is to be forever absent? These are questions which admit of an answer. Or, on the other hand, are your thoughts at waking wholly upon the things of time and earth? Do these things occupy your most active endeavours and employ your words? Are you bent with all your energies on the acquisition or preservation of gain, pleasure, ease, or fame? And is this so fully your turn of mind, that you seldom pray, or seldom with any engagement of heart; seldom think of God; seldom meditate on the eternity to which you are hastening; and seldom feel your sins to be such a burden as to force you to flee to Christ for reHef? Such is the case of many, of most; and if it be yours, then know assuredly that you mind earthly things.
But I am not permitted to leave you with the bare conviction that this is your state. A superficial persuasion of this, as an undoubted fact, has often come over you, without producing any change in your way of life. Consider with me, I pray you, the quahty, character and end of this your chosen course.
1. To mind earthly things, as the great paramount object, is degrading. It is unworthy of an immortal intelligence. You were made for better things. You were no more framed to fill your boundless capacities with these fleeting vanities, than to take the pleasure of the beast, bird, or insect. That nature of yours was once in the image of God, and still sighs for a restitution, which, through grace, is attainable. The course you pursue beUes and repudiates your immortahty. Your animated breathless chase of these temporalities, when translated into its true import, speaks thus: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” You are prostitutiag a noble instrument to an ignoble use. This is the secret cause of those disgusts which you often feel. Earthly things have not done for you that which they promised. They have not made you happy; they have often left you weary, sated, disappointed, and smarting. Some of your earlier pleasures have abeady lost their exquisite zest. Increase of years has brought weakness, repining, and bitterness. Accumulation of worldly goods has failed to give you comfort in proportion. Nay, if you will own the mortifying truth, you are less tranquil and satisfied than in former days. Many things on which you relied, have been taken from you, and for many that remain your appetite has died away. The foam of your brimming cup has been blown away, and you are endeavouring to cheer yourself with the dregs. Confess it, O my earthly hearer, and add the solemn consideration, that you are a spiritual, immortal, and accountable being, who will before long be hurried into the presence of Eternal Judgment. In reference to this, your great and certain destiny, the objects which interest you have no weight, except to condemn you. Having lived so long, you have not yet begun to live in view of your endless existence; and painful as is the charge, it is nevertheless just, that your whole course thus far has been such as to lower the true dignity of your nature, as one of God’s immortal creatures.
2. To mind earthly things involves incalculable loss. Men are prompt to avoid losses in that which concerns worldly possessions. But those who live altogether for this life, lose an entire class of pleasures and benefits.
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To them one avenue of happiness, and that the greatest, is closed. The higher faculties of the soul are unemployed. The gifts and consolations and delights of religion are unknown to them. Communion with God — a wide, expressive term — is all a mystery. They lose the pleasures of holy truth, and the witness of a conscience pacified by the blood of Christ. They lose the intercourse of faith and devotion with an unseen world and a benignant Saviour; the calm, hopeful anticipation of death; and the rapturous contemplation of glories yet in reserve. They lose the sense of God’s favour and the consciousness that they have entered on a progress of discipline and improvement which shall never end. In a word, they lose all that we mean by religion.
To some of you, my hearers, this seems no great loss. So wedded are you to the world, your idol, that you can look for happiness to no other source; no, not even to God. Yet I am bound to protest to you, that Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness; and that you forsake them to your infinite loss.
3. Hear me yet further, when I solemnly declare to you, that to mind earthly things is to incur fearful guilt. It is sinful. It is contrary to God’s holy will, and to his express commandment. It is wounding to your conscience, which still makes you feel the difierence between right and wrong, and rebukes and punishes you for this habitual sin of yoiu” life. You admit to yourselves, that you were not made for this world
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only; that you are the creatures and subjects of God, bound to do his pleasure, and that he demands of you to love him with heart, soul, strength, and mind. No doubt there have been moments in which your worldly pleasures have been embittered by the thought, that you were enjoying them in opposition to the known will of your Creator, Benefactor, and Preserver. Looking back on the long course of years, which you have spent without God, you have no moral complacency in it. It has not been the life which a dependent, favoured creature should have led. To have thus preferred created things to God, and made them the source of your happiness, to the exclusion of the Great Supreme, must appear to you, in any honest retrospect, all glaring with the colours of idolatry. It is ample ground of condemnation, that you have not made choice of God, but year after year have made choice of the world. And the proper consideration of this might bring you to repentance and to the foot of the cross. O that you could be induced to. meditate profoundly on this charge brought against the ungodly world, that they mind earthly things!
4. To mind earthly things involves peril of eternal destruction. I use a strong term, because the strongest I can use is likely to leave the worldly mind unimpressed. Yes, the man who deliberately chooses this world sets himself against God; and, oh, how unequal is the contest! He has his reward. In this life he has his good things, and many a despised Lazarus evil
THE WORLDLmG. things; but you remember the reverse, indicated by the parallel. The world passeth away and the lust thereof. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, all is rapidly fleeing; and when it has fled, the worldling’s heaven has fled with it. Here, in this present state, he chose his paradise. No eyes had he to behold any thing beyond. Revelation and its ministers warned him of the unstable basis on which’ he was i*earing his tall and costly structure, and sought to win him or alarm him to take the glass and look towards that city which hath foundations. But in vain. In all this he could make out nothing like reality, nothing to be an actuating motive. Living amidst the things of sense, and alive every moment to their palpable pressure, he took into none of his accounts that invisible state whose awful sweep, comprising God and angels and saints and all that is holy and ennobling, encircled him; nor that solemn eternity into which he was about to make the irrevocable plunge. And when the hour struck, which he so dreaded while he scarcely believed, the hour of his separation and departure, it found him still with clenched hands, striving to retain the things of time, and torn away bleeding and despairing from the earth which he had preferred to God. Read his doom in the brief but pregnant words of the context: Whose end is destruction! It is the lot of those who forget God.
There is reason to fear, that more are incurring this danger than are willing to believe it. The very closeness of their attachment to the objects of sense makes them insusceptible of impressions from divine realities. In regard to these, they hear as though they heard not; listening to the voice of admonition as the antediluvians listened to the forebodings of Noah, or as the men of the plain received the warnings of Lot. For persons thus infatuated, what hope can there be? What shall hinder their dying as they have lived? Nothing human, my brethren, but a bold, sudden and determinate resolution, to give up this world for the sake of another; to distrust the specious fallacies of sense and give credence to the testimony of God. Here, indeed, I am made to feel my own insufficiency. How solemn is the position of a minister of Christ! Placed amidst perishing feUow-mortals, to entreat them to escape from impending ruin, he finds them deaf to all his arguments and solicitations. Year after year he comes to them, with such pleas and motives as his closest research and most earnest prayers can enable him to offer. Yet he finds the same hardness and resistance only augmented, as years roll on and the cords of evil habit are wound about them more indissolubly. One after another drops away, whom we dare scarcely follow in their flight into the worlds unknown. The ranks close upon the vacancies they make, and the battle of cupidity, pleasure, and ambition rages on as before. It is in such circumstances that we lend a wistful ear to the oracle which proclaims from heaven, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Our waiting eyes are unto God, for the outpouring of his Holy Spirit. And next to this, and as instrumental of this, our appeal is to the professed people of God, that they would join their prayers for the awakening and conversion of an ungodly world. It was the contemplation of souls thus besotted and endangered, which extorted from Paul the pathetic burst which accompanies my text: “Por many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, whose end is destruction, who mind earthly things!” Beloved brethren, I should hail it as the brightest promise which has ever gilded these feeble labours among you, if there should be apparent in the midst of us a deep, extensive, and tender concern in the hearts of professing Christians, for those who are wedded to earthly things. Suffer me, with all sincerity, to commend this to you as a subject suitable for your prayers; in private, in your families, in social devotion, and in the house of God. For unless it please God to send revival, our outward increase will be but the signal for our inward decay.
If numbers were strength we should be strong. But mere numbers are fallacious. If souls are not brought to God by converting grace, in due proportion, our extension is but a weakening process, resulting in unhealthy plethora. Let me confess it, my respected brethren, the thought often occurs to me, that of this sort of enlargement we already have too much; it may be our temptation and our snare; it may invoke God’s chastening. If we are selfish, if we wrap ourselves up in complacency, if we “number the people,” if we sum up the wealth represented within these walls, for any purpose except to rebuke our sin and quicken our activity, if we hug our easy privileges, and refuse to break the charm and go forth to the help of weaker congregations; we may confidently expect, first checks and then visitations. When I look fearfully upon this great, compact, and harmonious assembly, and consider its resources and strength, and then around us and near us behold numerous weak and struggling churches, which need money far less than they need men, I cannot resist the conviction, that a considerable body of self-denying men, with their families, ought, by concerted action, to go forth as an evangelical colony; and if the fifty best and ablest of the flock should do so to-morrow, while friendship would weep over the wound, I should give thanks over it, as the best day of my life. But to produce such dispositions we need a new spirit. Christian professors, to whom we look as leaders, will have to learn fresh lessons of moderation, temperance, and regard for weak brethren. They will have to separate the amusements of their children by a more visible line from the amusements of a world lying in wickedness. They will cease to plead for Baal, and to frame excuses for all that their soul lusteth after. Religion will become the grand, paramount aff’air of life. Heavenly joys over the salvation of the offspring whom you have encouraged to prefer every thing to God, will render needless and even abhorrent the worldly pleasures in which you now inconsistently indulge. How shall this change be brought about? Know ye, that God has manifold ways of effecting it; and among these the way of trial and affliction. If you are his, he will use even this, rather than suffer you to perish. Let our eyes be unto the Lord, saying with intense desire, “Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee!”