211. [213] There was a certain Englishman, who had written learnedly and skillfully about faith and charity, and this from considerable ingenuity. But he had come to the conclusion that faith produces charity, and that when man is justified by faith he is in the endeavor to do good, and that this is the effect of faith; thus that faith first leads to charity and afterwards in charity. It was told him by angels that it so appears to man, and yet that it is not so; and, because it so appears, that this is the way of reformation, for thus man learns many things which are of faith, believing that in this way he is saved; but when man is not regenerated the order is inverted. And, moreover, that if he should make inquiry he would never find that faith produced charity, but that faith was produced by charity. And, therefore, because he was gifted with much ingenuity, he thought out many reasons for confirming the idea that it is faith that produces; and it was permitted him to produce these reasons, and to show whether the case was so. Wherefore in his meditation he was left to follow out each reason; but when he came to the end of his production there always appeared, as it were, an obstruction to the way which he was unable to penetrate so as to arrive at charity. Therefore, abandoning this reason, he acted in a similar manner with another reason, and so on with a hundred. In this way he went on in his ingenious meditation every day for an entire year, and not once did he see a conjunction on the part of faith. Wherefore he afterwards confessed that the thing was impossible, and that the fact that some said they had felt it with themselves was due either to their having thought of charity outside of faith, or to other causes, etc., etc., which arose from the fact that the things which are of faith have taught them, for the truths of faith teach and man acts according to them, and that from a principle either adopted or heard, they have attributed it to faith. Moreover, after a man has done charity, faith is then living, and then, in the single things, charity and faith work together, and it can hardly be seen which is prior and which posterior. The truths of faith which are of the thought and understanding are prior-but still truths do not live and become truths of faith or saving until man lives according to them.