Premature birth?

I've been thinking for a while that it's quite possible to be too eager to see people 'converted'; to pray the sinners payer and chalk them on the list of souls won for Christ. Like a premature birth, a person who converts without experiencing the full conviction of sin, or considering the cost of following Christ, produces a weak and vulnerable baby.

"Possibly, much of the flimsy piety of the present day arises from the ease with which men attain to peace and joy in these evangelistic days... Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Saviour. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate evil with which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honour of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed."
Charles Spurgeon, 1890, Autobiography

Spurgeon's methods for determining salvation were strict, and when true salvation in a person's life was not evident, they were posted in the churches List of Refusals – people to be revisited later on. As his biography states "He truly believed in hell, and he recognised the awful responsibility should he give some person cause to believe he was saved if there was no evidence that it was so."

The following are three marks of true conversion which Spurgeon's church looked for when dealing with a person tesifying that they had come to know Christ:

One, had the person, knowing himself to be a sinner and unable to do anything toward saving himself, gone to God, begging for mercy, and had entirely trusted his soul to Christ, believing in the saving merit of His death upon the cross? [This individual experience of the soul with God was the unalterable and basic necessity, and without it there was no recognition of the person as truly converted.]

Two, had the person entered into newness of life, experiencing a change of affections, victory over sins, a love for the Word of God, and a desire to win others to Christ?

Three, did he or she possess a basic understanding of the doctrines of grace, recognising that salvation did not begin with himself or his own will, but with God's choice and God's action, and that God, who saved him, would keep him through time and through eternity?

From Spurgeon: A New Biography by Arnold Dallimore, p81.