state of grace

When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.

1646, “Of Free-Will”, in The Confession of Faith of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, published 1946

I found these statistics, in a condensed form, in a telegram of the Associated Press, and preserved them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higher state of grace than she could have claimed to be in my time.

1883, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 51, in Life on the Mississippi, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC