Free and warm reception into the divine favor is the strongest of all motives in leading a man to seek conformity to Him who has thus freely forgiven him all trespasses… [But t]he tendency of the present day is to underestimate sin and to misunderstand its nature. From the Cross of Christ men strike out the very elements which intimate the divine opinion of its evil.

Sin is admitted to be an evil, greater or less according to circumstances; a hereditary poison, which time and earnestness will work out of the constitution; an unruly but inevitable appetite, which is to be corrected gradually by moral discipline and wholesome intellectual diet, rendered medicinal by a moderate infusion of the religious element; a sickening pain, sometimes in the conscience, sometimes in the heart, that is to be soothed by the dreamy mysticism, which, acting like spiritual chloroform, dulls the uneasiness without touching its seat; this is all!

Horus Bonar

See also:

SOUTHERN BAPTIST SOUL SHAPING RETURN TO RELIGIOUS BONDAGE

DONALD WHITNEY AND SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES: SPIRITUALITY WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

PRISCILLA SHIRER AND CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER