9. [9.] I have had many conversations with Anglican priests, including as well some bishops, on the subject of faith. They have insisted (because it is a tenet of their doctrine) that faith alone produces an endeavor toward good. But when asked whether by "endeavor" they meant a person's conscious will, they refused to acknowledge it, because, they said, everything that emanates from a person's conscious will is in itself not good and is merit-seeking. Therefore by "endeavor" they meant an internal operation, of which the intellect is little aware. Consequently such an endeavor exists within faith inwardly, they said, and is not manifested except through an inclination to act. They were so dogged in this opinion and in the opinion that faith produces the good called charity that they would not be turned from it, even though it was told them from heaven that faith does not produce anything of charity, but that charity produces faith, and that the faith preceding charity is not a living faith but simply knowledge. They were told also that a person ought to do good as though of himself, and that otherwise no element of good takes root or is implanted. But they closed their ears to this. When they were told that one of the most brilliant of them had thought up as many as a hundred reasons and ways to confirm the idea that faith is what produces, and that he had traveled along each of these paths (as happens in the spiritual world), thinking it to be the way, but yet, when he arrived at the end of each path, he saw from an enlightenment granted him that he had erred, which he also every time confessed; and when they had their formal prayer at the Holy Supper recited before them, which contains the following declarations,* they thought (not wishing to say) that it was for the laity, and the doctrine for the clergy. Therefore it was announced to them that a life according to the faith of the laity saves, while a life according to the doctrine of the clergy condemns, since there is no life in the faith of the clergy, nor any faith in their life, but only in that of the laity. * "The way and means to be received as worthy partakers of that Holy Table is First, to examine your lives and Conversations by the rule of God's commandments, and wherein soever ye shall perceive yourselves to have offended either by will, word or deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness, and to confess yourselves to Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life; and if ye shall perceive your offences to be such, as are not only against God, but also against your neighbors, then ye shall reconcile yourselves unto them, being ready to make restitution and satisfaction according to the utmost of your power, for all injuries and wrongs done by you to any other, and being likewise ready to forgive others that have offended you, as ye would have forgiveness of your offences of God's hand, for otherwise the receiving of the Holy Communion doth nothing else but increase your damnation. Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, or hinderer or slanderer of His word, or adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to the Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you with all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul." (From The Doctrine of Life, no. 5.)