the Lutheran Church, to whose service his first ministerial and professional labors were devoted. It coming to the knowledge of the ecclesiastical authorities that in his exposition of the Epistle to the Philippians he denied the ubiquity of the human nature of Christ, and taught the doctrine of predestination, he was deprived of his position in the Lutheran Church and passed over to the Reformed. He was soon appointed one of the pro- fessors of the new Institution of Hebron founded by the Duke of Nassau. He remained in connection with that institution from 1584 until his death in 1625, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He was a prolific writer. Besides a new translation of the Bible, he wrote numerous commentaries on books of the Old and New Testaments, and conducted many controversies with Lutherans and Romanists, before he embroiled himself with the theologians of his own church.1 He took the ground that the " imputatio justitiae " and " remissio peccatorum " are iden- tical ; the former means nothing more than the latter ; and con- sequently that Christ's work consists simply in the expiation of sin. His active obedience to the divine law constitutes no part of the righteousness by which the believer is justified before God. He admits that Christ rendered a twofold obedience, — the one to the law of God as a rule of duty ; the other to the special command given to Him as Mediator. He came to accomplish a certain work ; to do the will of the Father, which was to make satisfaction for sin. In this we are interested ; but his obedience to the moral law was for Himself, and was the necessary condi- tion of his satisfaction. He could not have made atonement for others had He not been Himself holy. " Tribuitur morti," he says,2 " quod ei tribuendum, nimirum, quod sit plenissima satis- factio pro peccatis nostris ; sic etiam vitae obedientias tribuitur, quod scriptura ei tribuendum perhibet, nimirum, quod sit causa, sine qua non potuerat Christus idoneus esse mediator inter Deum et hominem." Although Piscator made some effort to prove exegetically that pardon and justification, the remission of sin and imputation of righteousness, are identical, yet his arguments against the received doctrine, that the obedience of Christ is part of our justifying righteousness, are not Biblical. The question before his mind was not simply, What do the Scriptures teach ? but, What is true, logical, and symmetrical ? He saw objections
1 Theses Theolog., vol. iii. locus 39: "De causa meritoria justificationis hominis coram Deo, sive de ea re, quae a Deo ad justitiam imputatur." * Loc. xxvi, p. 331.
184 PART HI. Ch. XVH.- JUSTIFICATION.
to the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, which seemed to him fatal, and on the ground of those objections he rejected the doctrine. Thus, for example, he argues that Christ's obedi- ence to the law was due from Himself as a man, and therefore not imputable to others. He argues thus,1 " Qui Christum di- cunt ubique ut hominem, Christum dicunt non hominem, dum enim dico ubique, dico Deum, qui solus est in coelo et in terra. Similiter cum dico subjectum legi, dico hominem. Qui ergo Christum subjectum legi negant, negant ipsum esse hominem." Every man as such in virtue of being a man is individually bound to obey the moral law. Christ was a man ; therefore He was bound to obey the law for Himself. He did not perceive, or was not willing to admit, that the word "man" is taken in differ- ent senses in the different members of this syllogism, and there- fore, the conclusion is vitiated. In the first clause, " man " means a human person ; in the second clause, it means human nature. Christ was not a human person, although He assumed human nature. He was a man in the sense in which we are dust and ashes. But because we are dust, it does not follow that all that may be predicated of dust, may be predicated of us ; e. g., that we have no life, no reason, no immortality. In like manner, although the eternal Son of God took upon Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, yet as He was a divine person, it does not follow that everything that is true of human persons must be true of Him. Piscator also argues that the law binds either to punishment or to obedience, but not to both at once. Therefore, if Christ's obedience is imputed to us, there was no necessity that He should die for us. On the other hand, if He died for us, there was no necessity that He should obey for us. The principle here assumed may be true with regard to unfallen man. But where sin has been committed there is need of expiation as well as of obedience, and of obedience as well as expiation, if the re- ward of perfect obedience is to be conferred. Again, he says, if Christ has fulfilled the law for us, we are not bound to keep it. This is the old objection of the Jews ; if justified by grace we may live in sin. But Christ has fulfilled the law for us only as a covenant of works. In that sense, says the Apostle, we are not under the law, but it does not thence follow that we are free from all moral obligation arising from our relation to God, as rational creatures. It may be true as Baur, himself a thorough skeptic in the English and American sense of that word, thinks,
1 Loc. xxvi. p. 334.