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DECLARATION OF DR. G. A. BEYER. 143
the Creator, Redeemer, Saviour, and Regenerator ; the All in All of heaven and the
church. And farther, he contiiiually insists, that we ought to live according to
His divine order and commandments, which are, ’ to love Him above all things*
because he is love itself, ’
and our neighbor as ourselves.’
"The most general objections made to the writings of the author by those who
are ignorant of their true nature, are, that they do away with Christ’s satisfac-
tion; turn people from faith in Christ; set up self-righteousness and human
merit; and resemble Sociuianism. Nevertheless, u^hen his sentiments upon
the above subjects are duly examined, it will be evident, from arguments drawn
and demonstrated from the Word, that as to the first objection, namely, respect-
ing Christ’s Satisfaction, that doctrine is fully admitted : for the Lord, he con-
tends, in assuming Humanity, fulfilled all that is contained in the Word, from
the highest divine principle to the lov/est natural principle, which is the proper
meaning of that phrase. He maintains, further, that in the same Humanity, the
Lord combated the powers of hell, overcame and subdued them ; that He glori-
fied His humanity, diat is, rendered it divine, and so is a complete SavIour to
Eternity ; and that thus, with respect to His Humanity as well as to His Divinity,
He is the omnipotent God. Higher and more exalted principles respecting the
Satisfaction made by the Lord for the human race, cannot be required,
" Respecting the second objection, on the subject of Faith in Christ, no author
has urged the necessity of such faith with more force. He insists on it in a
thousand passages, and especially in his comment upon John iii. 16, and xv. 4,
besides teaching throughout all his wi-itings the impossibility for any Christian
to enter the kingdom of heaven and to be with the Lord, who does not acknow-
ledge Jesus Christ to be the only God, the Redeemer, and Justifier.
" The third objection, as to Self-righteousness and Merit, has no ground what-
ever in the author’s writings. He everywhere keeps close to the above passage
of John :
’
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me’ (xv. 4)
;
and insists that man can only- arrive at a conformity with the divine will by the
practice of good, in appearance indeed as from himself, but still under the ac-
knowledgment that in reality it is from the Lord : he therefore maintains, that
man is in himself nothing but what is evil and false, that is to say, nothing but
the love of self and of the world ; consequently, that man can claim no merit,
but that all merit belongs, without the possibility of man’s participation in it, to the
Lord alone.
*’
Respecting the fourth objection, namely, the charge of Socinianism, no man
can possibly maintain doctrines more repugnant to Socinus and his followers
than our author, who frequently quotes the principles of Socinus for the express
purpose of refuting them.
" Another pretext for opposing our author’s labors, is, that his views extend
beyond the sphere of the received doctrines, and announce high and important
truths in a manner altogether novel and unusual. In answer to which, it may
be proper to consider, that as what is spiritual infinitely exceeds in all respects
that which is natural, and yet additions are daily being made to our stock of
natural knowledge ; who shall hinder the divine light also from spreading its
beams as far as it is the will of our Lord God to permit ? And does that man
act wisely who shuts his intellectual eye against that light, or who puts his can-
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