Not, however, that the existence of a God is so clearly seen by reason as to dispense with faith; not from any want of cogency in the reasons, but from the amazing nature of the conclusion—­that it is so unparalleled, transcendent, and inconceivable a truth to believe.  It requires trust to commit oneself to the conclusion of any reasoning, however strong, when such as this is the conclusion:  to put enough dependence and reliance upon any premisses, to accept upon the strength of them so immense a result.  The issue of the argument is so astonishing that if we do not tremble for its safety, it must be on account of a practical principle in our minds which enables us to confide and trust in reasons, when they are really strong and good ones....  Faith, when for convenience’ sake we do distinguish it from reason, is not distinguished from reason by the want of premisses, but by the nature of the conclusions.  Are our conclusions of the customary type?  Then custom imparts the full sense of security.  Are they not of the customary, but of a strange and unknown type?  Then the mechanical sense of security is wanting, and a certain trust is required for reposing in them, which we call faith.  But that which draws these conclusions is in either case reason.  We infer, we go upon reasons, we use premisses in either case.  The premisses of faith are not so palpable as those of ordinary reason, but they are as real and solid premisses all the same.  Our faith in the existence of a God and a future state is founded upon reasons as much so as the belief in the commonest kind of facts.  The reasons are in themselves as strong, but, because the conclusions are marvellous and are not seconded and backed by known parallels or by experience, we do not so passively acquiesce in them; there is an exertion of confidence in depending upon them and assuring ourselves of their force.  The inward energy of the reason has to be evoked, when she can no longer lean upon the outward prop of custom, but is thrown back upon herself and the intrinsic force of her premisses.  Which reason, not leaning upon custom, is faith; she obtains the latter name when she depends entirely upon her own insight into certain grounds, premisses, and evidences, and follows it though it leads to transcendent, unparalleled, and supernatural conclusions....

Indeed, does not our heart bear witness to the fact that to believe in a God is an exercise of faith?  That the universe was produced by the will of a personal Being, that its infinite forces are all the power of that one Being, its infinite relations the perceptions of one Mind—­would not this, if any truth could, demand the application of the maxim, Credo quia impossibile?  Look at it only as a conception, and does the wildest fiction of the imagination equal it?  No premisses, no arguments therefore, can so accommodate this truth to us as not to leave the belief in it an act of mental ascent and trust, of faith as distinguished