because they and their teacher did not recognize the true character
of rationalism and the proper functions and limitations of the finite
intellect. Mansel gives a proper diagnosis of rationalism in the
following words:

"The rationalist . . . assigns to some superior tribunal the right
of determining what (in revelation) is essential to religion and what
is not; he claims the privilege of accepting or rejecting any given
revelation, wholly or in part, according as it does or does not
satisfy the conditions of some higher criterion, to be supplied by
human consciousness." Rationalism proceeds "by paring down supposed
excrescences. Commencing with a preconceived theory of the purpose of
a revelation, and of the form which it ought to assume, it proceeds
to remove or reduce all that will not harmonize with this leading
idea." "Rationalism tends to destroy revealed religion altogether, by
obliterating the whole distinction between the human and the divine.
If it retain any portion of revealed truth, as such, it does so, not
in consequence, but in defiance, of its fundamental principle."

But while many ministers are not much injured apparently by their
rationalistic taint, many others are, and all are more or less.
Eternity alone will reveal how much faith in God's Word, and
therefore in God himself, has been weakened or destroyed by this
dread mental disease. Look at the destructive ravages of
rationalistic criticism of the Bible. The Unitarians have completed
this work and have eliminated all the supernatural from the Divine
Record. But it is the preachers in the evangelical churches who are
following the Unitarians afar off in this matter, that are doing the
most damage to the faith of Christ's followers. I have been there,
and know how Unitarians look at this matter. They point to these