Mistakes will be made and have currency for a time.

But little by little truth emerges; it receives the suffrages of those who are competent to judge; gradually the controversy narrows; parts of it are closed up entirely, and a solid and permanent advance is made.
* * * * * The author of 'Supernatural Religion' starts from a rigid and somewhat antiquated view of Revelation--Revelation is 'a direct and external communication by God to man of truths undiscoverable by human reason.

The divine origin of this communication is proved by miracles.

Miracles are proved by the record of Scripture, which, in its turn, is attested by the history of the Canon .-- This is certainly the kind of theory which was in favour at the end of the last century, and found expression in works like Paley's Evidences.

It belongs to a time of vigorous and clear but mechanical and narrow culture, when the philosophy of religion was made up of abrupt and violent contrasts; when Christianity (including under that name the Old Testament as well as the New) was thought to be simply true and all other religions simply false; when the revelation of divine truth was thought to be as sudden and complete as the act of creation; and when the presence of any local and temporary elements in the Christian documents or society was ignored.
The world has undergone a great change since then.