WORLDLINESS.— To elucidate the conception of worldliness in the apostolic writings, we must start from the primary truth that the world is God's world. His by creation aud sustenance, Ijy sovereign purpo.se and control (see artt. Unity and World). There is in tho.se writings no hint of an absolute dualism and, consequently, none of an absolute principle of asceticism. Nothing is un- clean of itself (Ro 14"). Physical acts and enjoy- ments neither lie apart from the sphere of the moral life (as in the Gnostic conception of t6 idia- ipdpus f^r) nor are they a mere clog and hindrance to it ; on the contrary, they have an indispensable
part in its development, furnishing occasion in the common daily life for the most eltcctive exercise of the mor.'il iinl urc, in ililigence (I'.ph 4'^) and self- restraint (1 Co !l-°), in unselfish consideration for others (1 Co 7^' 8", etc.), and in the .sense of grateful dependence on God (Ro 14", 1 Co lO-'"-'", Eph 5-", 1 Ti 4*). Even where St. Paul's utter- ances, evoked by special emergencies and motives, might plausibly be construed in an opposite sense, his wider ethical doctrine repudiates such inter- pretation. If in a special situation he seems to deprecate and even disparage marriage and the family-life (1 Co 71- '■ »•■■*•«), be yet shows un- rivalled insight into their ideal significance and their value for .spiritual education (K|ih 5~-l)"). If he dreads anxious absorption in secular activities as incompatible with single-minded devotion to the Christian's spiritual calling (1 Co 7'-"-^'), on the other hand he sees in the earthly calling the sphere within which the spiritual is to be actually accom- plished (1 Co V, Eph 6»-», Col r--4') and ap:ut from which it cannot (1 Th 4"- '^, Eph 4=^, Tit '.i"). He steadily asserts that the Christian must recog- nize the structure of society as based upon Divine purpose and take his place therein accordingly. While he is bound to exclude from intimacy those who are unsympathetic with his inner life (1 Co 5'), he is by no means to hold aloof from ordinary intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men (1 Co 5'°), but here also is to find a field for that exercise of Christian principles and virtues (2 Co V", Col 4"-^) by which he shall shine as a light in the world (Ph 2"; ef. 1 P 2'i> 3'«). And, though St. Paul waxes indignant at those who sued their fellow-Christians before heathen tribunals (1 Co 6"^-), he strongly maintains the Christian duty of loyal submission to constituted civil authority (Ro 13'-', 1 Ti 2'-», Tit 31 ; cf. 1 P 2'»-"). In a higher .sense than to other men the world belongs to the Christian (1 Co 3"), as a system of Divinely ap- pointed duties and opportunities, all subservient to the education and development of Chri-stian character — as that apprenticeship in doing the will of God which is most perfectly adapted to his present capabilities and needs (1 Co 7"^). This is not merely an end for which the world may be used, but the end for which it exists. All things are ' of God,' but we are ' unto him ' (1 Co 8"). It is not as by afterthought or special inanijiulation that ' to them that love God all tilings work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose' (Ro 8-*; cf. Eph I''). Christian character is not a by-product of the Cosmos, but its purposed, proper, and eternal end.
But the achievement of this end presupposes devotion to it as the absolute good. It implies that the personality thus environed is dominated by an active faith in God and the spiritual life, by an earnest endeavouring after the ' new man ' botli for oneself and for others. When these comlitions are absent, when life in the world is not inspired by love to God, to the higher self, and to one's neighbour asoneself, it inevitably becomes 'worldly'; and even when these are present, worldliness is a danger still to be guarded against. The terrestrial environment appeals directly not to the spiritual but to the psychical and animal nature, and where, as even in the Christian, life is not entirely eman- cipated from the bias of sin, where higher and lower elements mingle and contcn<l, there is neces- sarily a tendency for the relatively good to displace the absolutely good ; and if this tendency is not counteracted and overcome, the uses and enjoy- ments of the world — innocent in themselves anil cajiable of being elevated to the higher range of values — become the means of chaining life to the lower.
The single passage in the apostolic writings that
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snggeats a psychology of worldliness is 1 Jn 2", where its constituents are given as ' the hist of the tlesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life.' Here it is seen that the world exerts its downward pull upon human nature principally in two ways : by the desire (f iritfu//Io) it exiites, and by the t'alse confidence (dXafoi-tia) it inspires.
(a) First, there is the desire ' of the Uesh,' the appetite for physical gratilication. The vulner- ability of human nature on this side is strongly accentuated in the apostolic writings. The sensu- ality of the pagan world is the subject of unsparing indictment (Ko l-""-, 1 Co e"""); but also of de- generate professors of the Christian faith St. Paul writes, even with tears, that their ' god is their belly' (Ph 3'"). The Epistles are full of warning against the tyranny of the senses and their atten- dant appetites (e.ff. Ro 13", 1 Co 6'-'- ", Gal 5'»-=', Eph 5'^, Col 3', 1 th i*- \ 2 Ti 2=^, 1 P 2", 2 P 2'«). But a subtler appeal is to the desire ' of the eyes,' which brings a liigher range of material interests into view. The outstanding example is, of course, the lust of possession — covetousness which is 'idolatry' (Col 3'), a fruitful source of spiritual disaster (1 Ti 6'), a root of all evil (e'"), and incom- patible with inheritance in the Kingdom of God (Eph 5'). Less widely destructive, yet harmful, are the lust of vain display in apparel and personal adornment (1 P 3^) ; the lust of idle curiosity, the craving for continual novelty of intellectual sensa- tion (Ac 17"') ; the lust of pre-eminence (3 Jn*) and self-assertion, which produces strife and friction, ambitions and envious rivalry (1 Co l'"- " 4"- ', 2 Co 12=», Gal 5™, Ph 2^ Ja 3'-'- " 4'=').