A worldly spirit

(Hannah More, "Practical Piety" 1811)  LISTEN to Audio!  Download Audio

Do not consider a worldly spirit . . .
  as a little infirmity;
  as a natural, and therefore a pardonable weakness;
  as a trifling error, which will be overlooked for the sake of our many good qualities.

A worldly spirit is, in fact . . .
  the essence of our other faults,
  the temper that stands between us and our salvation,
  the spirit which is in direct opposition to the Spirit of God.

Individual sins may more easily be cured, but a worldly spirit is the principle of all spiritual disease.

A worldly spirit, where it is rooted and cherished, runs through the whole character, insinuates itself in all we say, and think, and do. It is this which makes us . . .
  so dead in religion,
  so averse to spiritual things,
  so forgetful of God,
  so unmindful of eternity!

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever!" 1 John 2:15-17

"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world, becomes an enemy of God!" James 4:4