Grace exempts us from performance.
We are not expected to perform more or better because we are under grace.
Romans 4:3-8 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
On, MM, but we are: not to effect salvation, justification, and initial sanctification as new-born in and by the gracious Spirit; but we are regarding subsequent progressive sanctification, measured in observed and real felt spiritual maturation, finally summed up by the Lord's valuation of one's works at the Bema Seat of The Christ (2 Cor. 5:6-11).
The problem with Pope's analysis here is that according to the (false) RC view, all professors will undergo that judgment; whereas, in fact, the only humans evaluated there will be those who have been reborn in the Spirit by grace through faith, having already the experiential confession of possessing God's gift of salvation. Anyone who cannot satisfy this requirement will still be left on the earth to suffer God's great wrath, or be still in their graves until the Great White Throne judgment.
‘Attain’ ... the critical CLUE that the mind is stuck on earning what God gives only by Grace. You don’t earn grace, but the Catholic religion mind is blind to that simplest of truths. The Catholic Org would lose its power if the adherents awoke to realize they cannot earn or ‘attain’ grace by their striving, for that ‘striving’ only empowers the ORG, not the striver.
Actually that is not true, for while performance is not what justifies us so that we are "accepted in the Beloved," (Eph. 1:6) on Christ';s account, though performance justifies/vindicates us as being believers, (Heb. 6:9) yet God's purpose under grace is that we become on the practical level what we are on the positional level.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (Colossians 3:1)
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:24-25)
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)
The basic difference btwn justification by heart-purifying faith which is counted for righteousness and effects the latter, versus that of Catholicism is that it makes the effect the basis for salvation, actually becoming good enough to be with God, as the Law also demands, but which Catholicism justifies by saying it is under grace that one becomes perfect in character.
Some religions are more like Genesis 3:1...