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objects of sight in the world, who has also a dulness in the sense of touch, concerning which things he has an extraneous idea which no one knows but himself. This faith is what is called historical faith, and is by no means a spiritual faith, such as the faith of the church ought to be. (A. E. 232.)

That they who hold the doctrine of faith alone, and of justification thereby, are without the understanding of truth, is plain from this circumstance: that faith alone, or faith without charity, resides wholly in the memory, and nothing thereof in the understanding. Hence, they who are principled in such faith, remove the understanding from the things which pertain to faith, saying that such things are to be believed, and that the understanding has nothing to do with them. Thus they can say whatever they will, be it ever so false, provided they know how to adduce something in confirmation thereof from the letter of the Word, the spiritual sense of which they are ignorant of. In this lies concealed something similar to the statute of the pontiffs, which is, that all should depend upon what they say; thus persuading the people that they know and see all things, when yet they see nothing.

They, therefore, who do not see, that is, who do not understand the things which they believe, are meant by the blind. It is also a consequence of this, that they cannot perfect the life by means of the things pertaining to faith; for the way of access to the life of man is through the understanding, and by no other way can