I don't think the denial you attribute to Rome is there.
I also think that while the truth is simply it can still be oversimplified.
My citing of James was not intended as a nyah-nyah. It was more in the nature of a "consider by the bowels of Christ" it may not be quite as you say it is.
Your side seems to say that if WE say, "God will put the water in your mouth, but by the gifts He has given you, you must swallow if you want your thirst to be quenched," we are preaching salvation by works and giving grounds for pride and despair -- as if a man would think so much of the almost entirely involuntary swallowing that he would forget the person who gave the water!
I think a thoughtful man (especially one who had been around the sick and dying, would understand that the desire and the ability to swallow is also a gift. And so many of our prayers involve a plea "dignificare" to make us worthy. A simple understanding of "worthiness" is that it is intrinsic. But we ask for extrinsic and exogenous worthiness for the GIFT of merit. And we do not make this request in a corner or in the dark, but out for all to see. And they see, and still insist that we preach works-righteousness.
Mad Dawg wrote:
“I never get a straight answer to this: When you drive from DC to NY do you take I-95 or do you take a car?”
OK. I’ll bite. But since I’ve never seen this question before, and have never had the opportunity to give a straight or any other kind of answer to it, would you be kind enough to explain your analogy to me? Who knows, you might get a straight answer.
Yes.