ABS is blessed to occasionally get an email heads-up from the incomparable Mr James Larson.
Now, after the pleasure of name-dropping, here is Mr. Larson, a thoughtful and cautious gentleman, showing us where the bear shit in the buckwheat (an old Vermont idiom ABS seeks to keep alive)
To assert, as does Pope Francis, that such charity is unmerited, unconditional, and gratuitous is simply a form of the Lutheran heresy, which views justification, and the perseverance in God’s friendship as totally unmerited by man, and as not requiring the cooperation of man in virtue and the performance of good works. In my article The Dream of Nabuchodonosor, I quoted 21 Canons of the Council of Trent’s Decree on Justification which condemn Luther’s position, and detail at every stage of man’s justification – from preparation for conversion to final perseverance – the absolute necessity of the cooperation of man’s free fill and the performance of good works in the attainment of, and perseverance in, God’s friendship, and the possession of that supernatural charity which we call sanctifying grace.