Indeed a Christian believer should be a moral person. You can be a worldly moral person but godly morality comes by obedience and faith in Christ. Morality is not the foundation of being made right with a just God and does not bring salvation.
Repentance is necessary for civil persons. These have no visible spots on them. They are free from gross sin, and one would think they had nothing to do with the business of repentance. They are so good that they scorn a psalm of mercy. Indeed these are often in the worst condition: these are they who need no repentance (Luke 15.7). Their civility undoes them. They make a Christ of it, and so on this shelf they suffer shipwreck. Morality shoots short of heaven. It is only nature refined. A moral man is but old Adam dressed in fine clothes. The king's image counterfeited and stamped upon brass will not go current. The civil person seems to have the image of God, but he is only brass metal, which will never pass for current. Civility is insufficient for salvation. Though the life be moralized, the lust may be unmortified. The heart may be full of pride and atheism. Under the fair leaves of a tree there may be a worm. I am not saying, repent that you are civil, but that you are no more than civil. Satan entered into the house that had just been swept and garnished (Luke 11.26). This is the emblem of a moral man, I who is swept by civility and garnished with he endure thus to have his name and glory trampled upon? The Lord has usually been more swift in the process of his justice against the sins of a professing people. God may reprieve this land a while by prerogative, but if ever he save it without repentance, he must go out of his ordinary road.
Thomas Watson, ch 5, Doctrine of Repentance
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