Latter-day Saints are often (falsely) accused of holding to a legalistic, Pelagian or Pelagian-like soteriology. Furthermore, many (again, falsely) claim that the emphasis on faith and/or grace in modern Latter-day Saint works on soteriology are novelties to present “Mormonism” as being “mainstream.”
In a rather polemical work written in 1913, Janne Sjödahl wrote the following about the biblical (and Latter-day Saint) understand of justification:
The Scriptural doctrine of justification by that faith which is active in works of righteousness. (Janne Mattson Sjödahl, The Reign of Antichrist or the Great “Falling Away.”: A Study in Ecclesiastical History [Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1913], 30)
In other words, we are justified by an active faith, one that will produce good works and such good works prompted by, and empowered by, God’s grace are meritorious, not works done outside the auspices of God’s grace. Such is not a novelty by LDS authors to present the Church as “just another branch of Christianity”; it is the historical teaching of Latter-day Saint soteriology.
For more, see, for example:
