Men may make an imitation of what is called the interior of Christianity, as well as of the exterior. There may be a semblance of inward joy in God, of love to Him and His precepts, of dependence upon Him, and filial reverence of Him, which is wrought by the power of fancy and the feelings on the soul, as characters in a play are brought on the stage, unreal, but very good imitations and life-like. Such christians, fetching their religion from pious books and sermons, or learning from others, of such and such signs of grace and evidences of salvation, and that they must have these to get to heaven, set themselves to work, so as to bring their faculties and senses to represent all these to themselves, and so being in the ways here spoken of, acquainted with those excellent and gracious affections and dispositions, and how they are outwardly shown, may excite them interiorly and exhibit them outwardly, which joined with some thoughts of Christ and God and divine things, will serve for an artificial piety to their own satisfaction and the commendation of others. Such religion is of the earth, earthy: and not that new creature, which, if any man be in Christ, he is; the effect of that converting grace which comes from heaven, and begets a divine life in the soul, of such supremacy and power, that as Saint Paul says of it: Old things are passed away, behold, all things are made new. See then your need of that prayer. Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp