J.H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE ON THE REFORMATION

     Whenever religion has been under discussion, there have been three points to which our attention has been directed. God, Man, and the Priest. There can only be three kinds of religion upon earth, according as God, Man, or the Priest, is its author and its head. 

   I denominate that the religion of the priest, which is invented by the priest, for the glory of the priest, and in which a sacerdotal caste is dominant. 

    By the religion of man, I mean those various systems and opinions which human reason has framed, and which, being the offspring of human infirmity, are consequently devoid of all healing power. 

     The term divine religion I apply to the truth such as God gave it, — the end and aim of which are the glory of God and the salvation of man.

    Hierarchism, or the religion of the priest — Christianity, or the religion of God — Rationalism, or the religion of man, are the three doctrines that divide Christendom in our days. There is no salvation, either for man or for society, in the first or in the last. Christianity alone can give life to the world; and, unhappily, of the three prevailing systems, it is not that which has the greatest number of followers.

 

(HISTORY OF THE REFORMATIONOF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.pg 39, by J. H. Merle D’Aubigne