Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RA'TION-AL-IST, n.

1. One who proceeds in his disquisitions and practice wholly upon reason. – Bacon.
2. “Rationalists may be said to comprehend those latitudinarians, who consider the supernatural events recorded in the Old and New Testaments, as events happening in the ordinary course of nature, but described by the writers, without any real ground, as supernatural, and who consider the morality of the Scriptures, as subject to the test of human reason.” – C. Butler. The definition applies to the writings of certain German divines.