[Way-2-108] Everything that is outward in religion, whether it be men or things

Everything that is outward in religion, whether it be men or things, planting or watering, is only for the sake of this inward birth; either to direct man to it, to help him to work in it, or warn him of that eternal death, which the will, working according to flesh and blood, must inherit as its own genuine fruit. And whoever fancies the Christian life to be anything else than a birth growing up in God, till it comes to the perfection of the divine life, by the same way of a gradual growth from the seed, has not a syllable in the gospel, nor an instance in nature, to plead in excuse of his fanciful error.