There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell. Sir Richard Hill
One of the huge differences between formalism and true Christianity is the motives and desires of the heart. The formalist has no true holiness of heart or life, but may be quite stringent in the external life. The formalist may also be quite active in fighting certain evil thoughts in the inner life as well. But the true child of God longs for more grace and more true holiness, which only comes to and through the soul by grace. The true child of God wants holiness and when that is attained by grace it wants more real and true holiness.
Though it may be the case that Hill overstates the case by saying that the true child of God “can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace],” there is at the very least a strong point in there. That strong point is that the true child of God, though s/he may waver at times, will have a continuing thirst (to varying degrees) for holiness and grace. The true child of God is battered and buffeted a lot and at times thinks s/he has no desire for grace. The evil one will tempt the true child and it is also true that God Himself will withdraw and give the true child no felt desires for grace and holiness, but there is something in the true child that is something like a magnet that draws the person away from certain things. The true child of God will have the same direction from the moment s/he is born from above, but there are times when that direction may not be discerned to the external eye.
The formalist, on the other hand, may long to be rid of external sin and of evil thoughts that disturb the conscience, but s/he has no concern for true holiness and has no experimental concept of the real nature of sin. The formalist thinks it is righteous by following the external commands and the things of religion, but as long as s/he is not delivered from the formalism and self-righteousness will never see the glory of the Gospel and the free gift of righteousness given by grace alone. One of the deceptive parts of formalism (and how that fits in with the United States, at the least) is the thought that one stands and earns what it gets. It is the strong person standing for self and doing it of one’s own strength. Until a person is delivered from the bondage to self and the desire of self to stand in its own righteousness, that person will never rest in the righteousness of Christ alone and will never desire and seek a true holiness which comes by grace.
The heart is so deceptive that it is possible for a person to intellectually agree with the Gospel of grace alone and the need for an imputed righteousness and still be deceived by the evil one. It is possible for preachers to be deceived while they preach the doctrines of the Gospel according to the doctrines that are necessary for the Gospel. It is possible for preachers and others to think that because they know the truth and believe the truth (as stated in doctrinal form) and trust in the fact that they know and believe the truth rather than the object of that truth, Christ alone. It is possible for preachers and all others to believe that because they know about grace to think that they have grace. The deceptions of the evil one are strong and they cannot be escaped unless a person gives up on self and all the manifestations of self and looks to grace alone. Sinner, know that you will be damned forever if you don’t have the true Christ dwelling in your soul. Know that it is not enough to know about Christ and the Gospel, but instead you must know Christ Himself and you must have grace in your heart. It is not enough to know about the new birth and that one must be born again, but instead you must really be born from above. Don’t be deceived.
God Loves... Himself 
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