Can any honest heart deny that sacraments, church prayers, and well-read sermons leave multitudes of learned and unlearned, men and women, priests and people, as unaltered in their self-will, self-pity, and self-indulgence as they leave children unchanged in their childish follies? It matters not what religious name is given to the old earthly man of Adam’s bestial flesh and blood, whether he zealously contend for every sound Protestant doctrine, or popish dogmas, or Jewish feast days—or for various political parties. Under all these names the unregenerate, natural man has but one and the same nature, without any other difference but that which time and place, education, complexion, hypocrisy, and worldly wisdom may make in him. By such a man, whether he be papist or Protestant, the gospel is only kept as a book, and all that is within it is only so much condemnation to the keeper, just as the Pharisee zealously preserved the Books of the Law and Prophets, only to be more fully condemned by them. The coming of Christ to live by His Spirit in the hearts of redeemed men is God’s full answer and only salvation from this false religion of self-effort. 

The Power of the Spirit - William Law