Wait a minute! :) We say that works flow from true faith and are evidence of it. We believe in perseverance of the saints. IOW, in essence faith and works are two sides of the same coin. Without true faith there are no true works, and (under normal circumstances) one either has and does both or neither. So, we do not have the sense of separation that I interpret you describing above. Indeed, it is the Catholic side which seems to split faith and works into two separate categories. It is Catholics who allow for the general possibility of true faith without works (and even vice-versa), not the Reformed. So, if I'm following you I agree that this treatment is found no where in the Gospel. :)
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
If you don't separate faith and good works, you wouldn't have the man-made dogma of salvation being by faith alone. Yet that is the cornerstone of Protestantism, an it sure separates faith from good works. Naturally, given the divisive slogan "faith alone", and given the fact that indeed some works are pronounced by the Bible to be not salvific, a ppor atholic like me has to get a bit analytical and discuss faith, good works, and works for temporal reward (lumping works of Jewish law, works for wage, and works for "boast" together) part by part.
This false doctrine has severe moral implications as it impedes sanctification through the contact with the Holy Gospel, the only means of sanctification that remains in the Protestant communities of faith. Had this false doctrine been rejected by the Protestants, they would be able to read the Gospel as written without the need for phoney hermeneutics to explain it away at nearly every verse. Had that doctrine been rejected, Protestant men would have been able to get on with their pious efforts rather than falling to the vice of presumption of their once-received salvation. This invention of Luther is a real menace of mankind. This is the menance that desecrated monasteries, ridiculed consecrated life, vandalized churches and lead nations to war with themselves. You cannot say it doesn't exist.
The separation between real faith and declared but empty (St. James says, "dead") faith is a valid distinction, you would agree. That is a distinctions often made by the Protestants as they try to justify the absurdities of "faith alone", see for example, my recent dialogue with Quix here.
The separation between good works and works done for temporal reward is also valid and is often made by St. Paul as he disputes with the judaizers in Galatians and with the nation-conscious Romans. That distinctions is lost on most Prtoestants given that I get about three posts per day on Galatians 2 and Romans 3 trying to "prove" Faith Alone.
The separation between real faioth and good works is heretical and is condemned at Trent:
CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema. (The Sixth Session)