And if you direct the attention of
your mind to those who, growing old in shameful deeds and crimes, are renewed
by Christ’s sacrament of Baptism at the very end of their life, and, without any
good works to plead for them, are transferred to the assembly of the kingdom of
heaven, how will you understand this divine judgment, unless you acknowledge
that God’s gifts are undoubtedly gratuitous? And just as there are no crimes so
detestable that they can prevent the gift of grace, so too there can be no
works to eminent that they are owed in condign judgment that which is given
freely. Would it not be a debasement of redemption in Christ’s blood, and would
not God’s mercy be made secondary to human works, if justification, which is
through grace, were owned in view of preceding merits, so that it were not the
gift of a Donor, but the wages of a laborer? (Prosper of Aquitaine, The Call of
All Nations 1.17, c. A.D. 450, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols.
[trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1979],
3:195)