The relation, then, of reason to faith is not strange, or forced, or unfamiliar to us, if it is much the same as its relation to the affections, or to moral acts and intuitions. We know what to expect, what part it ought to play in such a case. As in a case of heroic moral daring, or high affection, so, in a matter of faith, we shall expect that reason, with its arguments and its evidences, will play all round and about it, will go before it, discussing the path to follow, will follow after it, unravelling the secret forces at work in it: will watch, and analyse, and learn, and warn; will reconnoitre, and examine, and survey, and discover: will justify, interpret, defend, assist. But yet we shall expect, also, that the act of faith will do more than all the arguments can anticipate: that it will hold itself free from them all: that it will appeal, not to them, but to its own inherent force, for the final decision: that it will move by instinct, by spontaneity, by inspiration: that it will rush past all evidences, in some great stride; that it will brush through scruples that cannot be gainsaid, and obstacles that cannot be got over; that it will surprise, that it will outdo, that it will create; that it will bring novel forces into play, invisible, unaccountable, incalculable; that it will fly, when reason walks; that it will laugh, when reason trembles: that it will over-leap barriers which reason deems final. As with love, so with faith, it will take in all evidences, it will listen to all proofs; but when they have done their utmost, it has yet got to begin; it itself, after all its calculations, must make the actual spring, which is the decision. Out of itself, it draws its strength: out of itself it makes its effort; by being what it is, it sees what it sees, it does what it does. It uses the evidence; but uses it to leap from, to go further. Its motives, advances, efforts, issue from within itself. Just as the lover's final answer to the question, 'why did you do that?' must be, 'because I loved'; so the final answer of the believer, in explanation of an act, can never be wrung out of the reasonable grounds for so acting; it must always be 'because I believed.' Just as man first acts, and speaks, and reason, following behind, can at last discover that his actions were all consecutive, and that his language has a perfect grammar; so faith has always to make its venture, prompted and inspired from within, and only long afterwards can it expect to learn that if it has been true to itself, to its proper promptings, then its action can, by slow and plodding reason, be thoroughly interpreted and justified. Faith is, above all things, anticipatory. The sonship, within, anticipates what the Father has in store for it: by means of affection, by rapid instincts of love, it assumes what it cannot yet verify, it foretells the secrets that lie hidden within the Father's eyes. So anticipating, it makes its venture;--a venture which love