of Deists and open opposers of Christianity, it is difficult to
conceive, except that it seems to be rather worse. Even Bolingbroke
admits supernatural Revelation to be possible. Tom Paine himself says,
'Revelation when applied to religion means something immediately
communicated from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of
the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases.' Spinoza
asserts that the 'Israelites heard a true voice at the delivery of the
ten commandments; that God spoke face to face with Moses; and generally,
that God can communicate immediately with men, and that though natural
science is divine, yet its propagators cannot be called prophets.' That
the Rationalist view of revelation is contrary to the popular belief of
Christians generally, and of Christian churches and divines
particularly, there can be no doubt. It is intended so to be....

"The Rationalist professes to believe that all the knowledge of truth at
which man arrives is owing to the original wisdom, will, and power of
the Almighty in giving man a certain intellectual constitution, to be
unfolded by the circumstances of human history and necessities--that
therefore moral and religious truth, such as the Rationalists
acknowledge, is still to be ascribed to the purposes and power and
efficacy of the Great Spirit, acting upon that which is material and
compound.

"Why, then, should it be impossible for the Creator to shorten the
process, to help man in his painful and often unsuccessful search after
truth, and to make known that which exists in the Divine mind and
purpose? To say that he cannot, is in fact to depose him from the throne
of omnipotence, and to bring us back either to two eternal independent
principles, incapable of all communication, or to drive us to Pantheism.
If there ever was a period in duration in which God could act upon
matter, or endue infinite intelligences with the means and capability of
knowledge, he can do so still."[7]

M. Saintes, who has investigated the history of this subject more
thoroughly than any other writer, says of the significations and limits
of Rationalism:

"I myself at first imagined that it signified the wise and constant
exercise of reason on religious subjects, but in studying the matter
historically I soon found that it is the same with this word as with
many others which, having lost their original meaning, now express an
idea directly contrary to that which their etym