“I assert, therefore, that the perseverance by which we persevere in Christ even to the end is the gift of God; and I call that the end by which is finished that life wherein alone there is peril of falling. Therefore it is uncertain whether any one has received this gift so long as he is still alive. For if he fall before he dies, he is, of course, said not to have persevered; and most truly is it said. …For if any one have … faith, and fall away, he is rightly said to have had these virtues and to have them no longer; for he was…righteous…he was believing, as long as he was so; but when he ceased to be so, he no longer is what he was.”