Deist,
one who admits the being of a God, but denies the existence or even necessity of a divine revelation, believing that the light of nature and reason are sufficient guides in doctrine and practice; a believer in natural religion only; a freethinker.
A term applied in controversy which arose in England in the 17th and 18th centuries, between those who believed and those who disbelieved in revelation; the latter, however, not occupying the atheistic standpoint, but accepting the existence of a God.
Entry from
Everybody's Cyclopedia,
1912.