More words are usually required to answer an objection than are required to state it. We do not assert or concede the fallibility of reason, intellect, or private judgment in matters which come within its own province or competence. Revelation presupposes reason, and therefore that man is capable of receiving it; consequently of certainly knowing and correctly understanding it, within the limits of his finite reason. We do not build faith on scepticism, or the incapacity of reason to know anything with certainty. Reason is the preamble to faith, and is competent to receive and understand truly, infallibly, if you will, clear and distinct propositions in their plain and obvious sense when presented to it in words spoken or in words written. If it were not so, all writing and all teaching, all books and all sermons, would be useless. So far the Protestant rule and the Catholic are the same, with this difference only, that, if we happen to mistake the sense of the church, she is ever present to correct the error and to set us right, while the Protestant rule can give no further explanation, or add a word to correct the misapprehension. The teachings of the church need to be understood, but not ordinarily to be interpreted; and, even when they do have to be interpreted, she is present to interpret them, and declare infallibly the sense in which they are to be understood. But the Bible, from beginning to end, must be interpreted before it can be understood, and, while private judgment or reason may be competent to understand it when it is interpreted or explained, it is yet only a fallible interpreter, and incompetent to explain to the understanding its real sense.