266 Of the Belation of Tradition to Falcetiology , 



rity of the Scripture or of the truth of its teaching. When 

 the language of Scripture, invested with its new meaning, has 

 become familiar to men, it is found that the ideas which it calls 

 up are quite as reconcilable as the former ones were with the 

 most entire acceptance of the providential dispensation. And 

 when this has been found to be the case, all cultivated persons 

 look back with surprise at the mistake of those who thought 

 that the essence of the revelation was involved in their own 

 arbitrary version of some collateral circumstance in the re- 

 vealed narrative. At the present day, we can hardly conceive 

 how reasonable men could ever have imagined that religious 

 reflections on the stability of the earth, and the beauty and 

 use of the luminaries which revolve round it, would be inter- 

 fered with by an acknowledgment that this rest and motion 

 are apparent only.* And thus the authority of revelation is 

 not shaken by any changes introduced by the progress of 

 science in the mode of interpreting expressions which describe 

 physical objects and occurrences ; provided the new interpre- 

 tation is admitted at a proper season, and in a proper spirit ; 

 so as to soften, as much as possible, both the public contro- 

 versies and the private scruples which almost inevitably ac- 

 company such an alteration. 



9. When should old Interpretations he gwen up f — But the 

 question then occurs, What is the proper season for a religi- 

 ous and enlightened commentator to make such a change in 

 the current interpretation of sacred Scripture ? At what pe- 

 riod ought the established exposition of a passage to be given 

 up, and a new mode of understanding the passage, such as is, 

 or seems to be, required by new discoveries respecting the laws 

 of nature, accepted in its place ? It is plain, that to introduce 

 such an alteration lightly and hastily would be a procedure 

 fraught with inconvenience ; for if the change were made in 

 such a manner, it might be afterwards discovered that it had 

 been adopted without sufficient reason, and that it Was neces- 

 sary to reinstate the old expositions. And the minds of the 

 readers of Scripture, always to a certain extent and for a time 

 disturbed by the subversion of their long-established notions, 

 would be distressed without any need, and might be seriously 



* I have here borrowed a sentence or two from my own History. 



