, but because our interpretation is wrong." (The
italics in all cases are our own.)

Elsewhere he says: "It seems to me plainly evident that the record of
Genesis, when read fairly, and not in the light of our prejudices--_and
mind you_, _the essence of Popery is to read the Bible in the light of
our opinions_, _instead of viewing our opinions in the light of the
Bible_, _in its plain and obvious sense_--falls in perfectly with the
assertion of geologists."

On comparing these two passages, we gather that when Dr. Cumming, under
stress of geological discovery, assigns to the biblical text a meaning
entirely different from that which, on his own showing, was universally
ascribed to it for more than three thousand years, he regards himself as
"viewing his opinions in the light of the Bible in its plain and obvious
sense!" Now he is reduced to one of two alternatives: either he must
hold that the "plain and obvious meaning" of the whole Bible differs from
age to age, so that the criterion of its meaning lies in the sum of
knowledge possessed by each successive age--the Bible being an elastic
garment for the growing thought of mankind; or he must hold that some
portions are amenable to this criterion, and others not so. In the
former case, he accepts the principle of interpretation adopted by the
early German rationalists; in the latter case he has to show a further
criterion by which we can judge what parts of the Bible are elastic and
what rigid. If he says that the interpretation of the text is rigid
wherever it treats of doctrines necessary to salvation, we answer, that
for doctrines to be necessary to salvation they must first be true; and
in order to be true, according to his own principle, they must be founded
on a correct interpretation of the biblical text. Thus he makes the
necessity of doctrines to salvation the criterion of infallible
interpretation, and infallible interpretation the criterion of doctrines
being necessary to salvation. He is whirled round in a circle, having,
by admitting the principle of novelty in interpretation, completely
deprived himself of a basis. That he should seize the very moment in
which he is most palpably betraying that he has no test of biblical truth
beyond his own opinion, as an appropriate occasion for flinging the
rather novel reproach against Popery that its essence is to "read the
Bible in the light of our opinions," would be an almost pathetic
self-exposure, if it w