“Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”-Ephesians 2:9, 10.

We insist upon it, with all our might, that salvation is “not of works, lest any man should boast.” But, on the other hand, we freely admit, and earnestly teach, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Where there are no good works, there is no indwelling of the Spirit of God. The faith which does not produce good works is not saving faith: it is not the faith of God’s elect: it is not faith at all in the Scriptural sense… Before, in the gracious providence of God, Luther was raised up to preach the doctrine of justification by faith, the common notion among religious persons was, that men must be saved by works; and the result was that, knowing nothing of the root from which virtue springs, very few persons had any good works at all. Religion so declined that it became a mere matter of empty ceremony, or of useless seclusion; and, in addition, superstition overlaid the original truth of the gospel, so that one could hardly find it out at all… The way of salvation is by something other than our own works… We who are saved walk in holiness; for we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” It is a decree of the sovereign Lord that His chosen should be led to walk in holiness… We preach salvation “not of works”; we repeat the teaching again and again, and mean to repeat it continually till we die. Salvation is of the Lord’s mercy, and not by works of the law. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2210.cfm