davidbrainerd wrote:Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
This is complicated by the next verse of Ephesians 2
8. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9. Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
You're idea that this explicitly states "faith, not works" is complicated by the fact that the context is that is comes in a statement saying that faith and works go together, Paul states here that part of having faith is doing good works "which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them".
davidbrainerd wrote:Romans 3:27 "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith."
The context here is that boasting is excluded from the Christian path. One can only boast about works, but one cannot boast in any true way about faith because faith is understood by Paul to be the gift of grace and you cannot boast about what you receive freely (from God, in the Christian worldview), therefore you cannot boast about faith., and it is on that grounds that boasting about your "spiritual attainments" (my Buddhist phraseology, not Paul's) is futile. You probably consider that an "Augustinianism", but if you put Paul in context, that is consonant with his other sayings in the epistles.
davidbrainerd wrote:Romans 4:6 "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,"
The context of this is, once again, talking about boasting about being absolutely saved, which was evidently a problem in the Roman community he was writing to. This is part of Paul's theology about freely given grace. All humanity, according to Christians, through the mysteries of Christ, whether or not they like the use of the word "mysteries", have the potentiality for salvation due to God's freely given grace. It is not excluding morality and good-works.
davidbrainerd wrote:Romans 9:11 "(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)"
This has nothing to do with salvation, this is to do with election. It is put into better context with a fuller quote
11. Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God's purpose of election might continue,
12. not by works but by his call) she was told, "The elder shall serve the younger."
13. As it is written, "I had loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau."
14. What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!
15. For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
This is just basically saying that God can do whatever he wants and can choose to favour anyone he wants, regardless of who they are, if they serve his purposes. Its not excluding works.