September 4

On Formalism

Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either that they may gain thereby, or else because they dare not do otherwise. ME332

“If you have a religion that suits your constitutional fondness for ceremonies, your æsthetic taste for culture, your habitual passion for music, beware of it.” (2859.572)

“Repentance and faith are distasteful to the unregenerate; they would sooner repeat a thousand prayers than shed a solitary tear of true repentance.” (3121.581)