14 August, 1811.
Ib.
s. iii. p. 348.
The Churches have troubled themselves with infinite variety of questions, and divided their precious unity, and destroyed charity, and instead of contending against the devil and all his crafty methods, they have contended against one another, and excommunicated one another, and anathematized and damned one another; and no man is the better after all, but most men are very much the worse; and the Churches are in the world still divided about questions that commenced twelve or thirteen ages since, and they are like to be so for ever, till Elias come, &c.
I remember no passages of the Fathers nearer to inspired Scripture than this and similar ones of Jeremy Taylor, in which, quitting the acute logician, he combines his heart with his head, and utters general, and inclusive, and reconciling truths of charity and of common sense. All amounts but to this: — what is binding on all must be possible to all. But conformity of intellectual conclusions is not possible. Faith therefore cannot reside totally in the understanding. But to do what we believe we ought to do is possible to all, therefore binding on all; therefore the
unum necessarium
of Christian faith. Talk not of bad conscience; it is like bad sense, that is, no sense; and we all know that we may wilfully lie till we involuntarily believe the lie as truth; but
causa causæ est causa vera causati.
Ib.
p. 347.