St. Augustine was a Catholic Bishop and there is no getting around it:
From the Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers:
St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor: How the Mind Becomes capable of grasping the mysteries:
“What must God’s Church (note the visible Church, not an invisible undefined vague “group”) do to comprehend that which it was the first to be given to believe? Let it make its soul capable of receiving what shall be given it. That it may do this, that is, that the soul may become capable, the Lord our God as it were HOLDS HIS PROMISES OUT OF OUR REACH; He does not withdraw them.He so withhodls them that we may stretch ourselves towards them. We strain, and therefore we grow. And so we grow, that we may reach what He promised us. Think of the Apostle stretching forth towards the WITHHELD promises: NOT AS THOUGH I HAD ALREADY ATTAINED, OR WERE ALREADY PERFECT. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do: forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth myself the things that are before, I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Jesus Christ. (Phil iii 12-14)”
Clearly St, Augisutine agrees with the Church’s doctrine that the promises are not here already while we “run the race” and we are not perfected yet on earth.
Also - non Catholics do not allow anyone else to interpret scripture for them; this post seems contradictory to non catholic tradition (small t).
Augustine in other writings clearly embraces the sacraments as well, and as I own the complete Sunday sermons I can easily quote them without cherry picking from an internet search; but won’t won’t bore everyone with long winded text when it can be resarched for oneself.
The quote in question is not speaking of salvation, but of sanctification, that is, growing in God.