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6 Every Theologian will be aware of the difficulty of giving scholastic terms in an English dress. In the language of the Schools, the most abstract ideas, which would require a sentence to explain them in our tongue, are most appropriately expressed by a single word; all the Romance languages, daughters of the Latin, have very nearly the same facility; but our Northern tongue has not, I imagine, flexibility enough for the purpose. I have, however, endeavoured, as far as I could, to preserve the very terms of the original, knowing how easy it is to give a heteredoxheterodox [sic] sense to a passage, by even the most trivial deviation from the very expression of the writer. The Theological Student will thus, I hope, find the work a compact Manual of Polemic Theology; the Catholic who, while he firmly believes all that the Church teaches, wishes to be able to give an account of the faith that is in him, will here find it explained and defended; while those not of the "fold," but for whom we ardently pray, that they may hear the voice of the "one Shepherd," may see, by its attentive perusal, that they inhabit a house "built upon the sand," and not the house "on the rock." They will behold the mighty tree of Faith, sprung from the grain of mustard-seed planted by our Redeemer, always flourishing, always extending, neither uprooted by the storms of persecution, nor withered by the sun of worldly prosperity. Nay more, the very persecution the Church of God has suffered, and is daily enduring, only extends it more and more; the Faithful, persecuted in "one city," fly elsewhere, bearing with them the treasure of Faith, and communicating it to those among whom they settle, as the seeds of fertility are frequently borne on the wings of the tempest to the remote desert, which would otherwise be cursed with perpetual