“…Good works are necessary to salvation, not as a cause to an effect, or as if they merited a reward, but as a part of salvation itself, or as an antecedent to a consequent, or as a means without which we cannot obtain the end. In the same way we may also say, that good works are necessary to righteousness or justification, or in them that are to be justified, viz.: as a consequence of justification, with which regeneration is inseparably connected….We may more safely and correctly say, That good works are necessary in them that are justified, and that are to be saved…. Augustine has correctly said: Good works do not precede them that are to be justified, but follow them that are justified. We may, therefore, easily return an answer to the following objection: That is necessary to salvation without which no one can be saved. But no one who is destitute of good works can be saved, as it is said in the 87th Question [of the Heidelberg Catechism]. Therefore, good works are necessary to salvation, viz: as a part of salvation, or as a certain antecedent necessary to salvation, in which sense we admit the conclusion; but not as a cause, or as a merit of salvation.” (Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism [Cincinnati, 1851], Q. 91, sec. 5, pg. 485)
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