The most dangerous infidels are not the most open infidels. There is a set of men, who persuade themselves that they believe Christianity, whilst in truth they are reasoning Christianity quite out of doors.
What pains do some parents take to teach their children the catechism, to make them repeat prayers night and morning, and to bring them to church, perhaps to sacrament, who yet would be very uneasy and much displeased to see those children become real children of God, living by faith above the world. Sir Richard Hill
Both quotes from above come from the same type of unregenerate heart that longs for religion, but just not God Himself and the true religion that flows from heaven through and by the true Christ. The first quote is quite consistent with many college and seminary professors and many ministers as well. One does not have to really and truly believe from a regenerate heart to believe certain things about Christianity while denying the very life of it. There appears to be many brilliant men that wear the robes of scholarship within Christendom and perhaps many more who are in the ministry, yet they hate true Christianity and use their scholarship and their pulpits to reason true Christianity away. There is a huge difference between the external forms and rituals of Christianity and the inward aspect of Life Himself who dwells in the souls of His people.
It is one thing to say words in front of people, but it is another thing to pray to the living God from a heart full of true life. It is one thing to preach the words of a text to people, but it is quite another to preach the living Christ out of love for Him and His glory. It is one thing to deal with a text in a way that a scholar (believer and/or unbeliever) will approve of, but it is quite another to deal with a text in a way that God approves of. It is one thing to deal with a text according to a way that humanistic scholarship will accept, but it is quite another to deal with a text out of love for God and His glory shining through Christ. Expositional preaching, writing, and studying can all be done from dead and unregenerate hearts. It is not possible to educate a person enough to regenerate them. It is not possible for good scholarship to regenerate people. Unregenerate hearts will reason the true nature of God and His glory down to a level where it is acceptable to scholarship, but also simply an abomination to God.
It is far easier to train children up in the ways of formal and ritual religion than it is to point them to Christ who alone can regenerate them. Children from a formal religion may indeed behave better in some ways than those who are not raised that way, but that may only make them closer to hell if they learn to trust in false religion and hate the truth of Christ. Getting children to say words in memorized prayers is easy while true prayer is impossible to train them in. What Sir Richard Hill may be getting at, then, is that it may be the case that parents who are very religious and very formal in what they are doing may indeed be training their children in the same formal and ritualistic way that they were trained. It is part of their formal and ritualistic religion to train their children up in that way.
What we must see, however, is that formal and ritualistic religion hates true Christianity even if it is going under that name. Parents who teach and train their children in the formal and ritualistic ways of religion hate true Christianity and they are training their children out of that hatred. They would not and could not be pleased to see their children turn from the false religion that they have raised them in and turn in love to Christ which they hate. Let us beware of what we approve of. If we approve of the way parents raise their children when they train them in the catechism and in strict formal and moralistic ways, what we may actually be approving is hatred of true Christianity and of the true and living God.
True Christianity may have some forms and some rituals, but Christ Himself living in His people as their life is the heart of true Christianity. One can memorize a catechism (any one or all) and not know Christ. One can say prayers all day and night and still not know Christ or be known by Christ. True Christianity lives by the life of Christ and Christ Himself is a person’s righteousness and sanctification. True Christianity is about the living Christ and not about studying things about Him or saying words in a general direction. True Christianity is about worship in spirit as well as truth. God Himself loves the humble and the contrite that are nothing but instruments of His glory, not those who think they can please Him by what they do.
God Loves... Himself 
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