[HarleyD]

Augustine’s Treatise “On Grace and Free Will” was written before the Perseverance of the Saints. I don’t think you can look at one and the other with equal weight. Instead it shows a progression in Augustine’s thinking.

[Cronos]

Valid enough that “on Grace and Free will” was written before the “Perseverance of the Saints”, though I of course, disagree with you that this is a progression in Augustine’s thinking. Will reply specifically to the P of the S later this evening. Thank you

[Cronos]

Here's an extract from the Preservation... chapter 17 (heavy read!)

Thus the salvation of this religion, by which only true one true salvation is truly promised, never failed him who was worthy of it; and whoever it failed was not worthy of it. And from the very beginning of the propagation of man, even to the end, the gospel is preached, to some for a reward, to some for judgment; and thus also those to whom the faith was not announced at all were foreknown as those who would not believe; and those to whom it was announced, although they were not such as would believe, are set forth as an example for the former; while those to whom it is announced who should believe, are prepared for the kingdom of heaven, and the company of the holy angels.

and whoever it failed was not worthy of it. --> no sense of pre-ordination of the damned.

Catholic dogma states that

• the eternal choice of the elect by God is very real, very gratuitous, and constitutes the grace of graces;
• However, this does not contradict the Divine will to save all men, which is not realized except by the liberty of free will that leaves to the elect full power to fall and to the non-elect full power to rise under God's grace

This is illustrated in Preservation... chapter 19

although foreknowledge may exist without predestination; because God foreknew by predestination those things which He was about to do, whence it was said, He made those things that shall be. Isaiah 45:11 Moreover, He is able to foreknow even those things which He does not Himself do—as all sins whatever

He goes on to say

Because, although there are some which are in such wise sins as that they are also the penalties of sins, whence it is said, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, Romans 1:28 it is not in such a case the sin that is God's, but the judgment.

As an aside, he says in chapter 25

If the Pelagians should dare to say this, by their denial of original sin they would thus be relieved of the necessity of seeking, on behalf of infants outside of the kingdom of God, for some place of I know not what happiness of their own; especially since they are convinced that they cannot have eternal life because they have not eaten the flesh nor drank the blood of Christ; and because in them who have no sin at all, baptism, which is given for the remission of sins, is falsified.