Works are what God says they are, not what men like you say they are.
Taking hold of the gift offered is not a meritorious work no matter what some depraved system of interpretation says it is.
I know you like to consider a single verse out of Scripture to feebly attempt to establish erroneous doctrine, but if you could look past the blindness into some context, you might see that the taking hold of abundant grace in
Rom5:17 ties back to having access/a way of approach
into this grace by faith and being
justified by faith discussed at the beginning of the chapter
Rom5:1-2. That active taking hold in
Rom5:17 is what Faith does. Actually, it is Faith as pistis and lambanō are used in parallel in the Text.
I was pondering you guys and your system and fallacious argumentation while out breathing the fresh air this morning. It's kind of subtle but when pushed your fallacies jump straight into telling those who don't accept your misinterpretations that we don't know Grace. If we push this harder to get you where you inevitably go with these logical fallacies, this allegation "scoff[ing] at the Gospel of Grace" at root is you telling us we're not Christians. Your asserting "works [salvation]" is just your heading further to where you'll end up at denying our salvation.
The more learned TULIPists know not to go there. The aggressive pups like you haven't learned this yet. The fallacious argumentation shows the poor reasoning at work to take you there.
It's sad, actually. With all the Grace we have access to, we the
corporate elect should do better.