On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §117 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 10: Justice, conjunction, unknown covenant — stop before Theologorum

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Someone may say justice itself required God to will the imputation of that first sin rather than of other sins. Then why, I ask, was that cause never produced? Why call God's will the unique cause of the matter? And how — while we for now only answer — will anyone prove that justice required it? Flee to our conjunction with Adam, and was that bond stronger at his first sin than later, or stronger with him than with parents nearer to us? Flee to some unknown covenant whose terms were that, if he sinned, his first sin would be charged to all his posterity under those two penalties — inherent sin and eternal death — and that covenant must be proved from Scripture, which cannot be done at all. Above all we must beware of ascribing to God anything Scripture does not give Him, especially anything that clouds His virtues; for that cannot fail to be a grave sin.

Latin

Sed fortasse exigebat justitia, ut Deus vellet primum illud peccatum imputare potius quam alia peccata? Cur ergo, inquam, hanc causam non attulit? cur dixit illius rei unicam esse causam, Dei voluntatem? Aut quomodo probabitur (nos enim nunc quidem respondentium partes tuemur) id justitiam exegisse? Si confugias ad conjunctionem quae nobis cum Adamo intercedit, ea ne major fuit cum primum peccaret quam postea, aut cum eo, quam cum propinquioribus nostris parentibus? Si ad nescio quoddam foedus, cujus haec fuerit conditio, ut si peccaret, primum eius peccatum omnibus eius posteris ad duas istas poenas imputaretur, peccatum inhaerens & mortem aeternam, probandum erit illud foedus e Scriptura; id quod est prorsus impossibile. Cavendum est autem nobis quam diligentissime ne quid praeter Scripturam Deo tribuamus, praesertim ejusmodi, quod virtutes eius obscuret; id enim non potest non grave peccatum esse.

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Josué de la Place (Placeus) on the imputation of Adam's first sin: chapters 1 to 12 and 14, and the later disputation up to its chapter on Romans 5:14, from the Latin. The rest is not yet translated.

Josué de la Place (c. 1596–1655), known in Latin as Placeus, was pastor at Nantes and from 1633 professor of theology at the Academy of Saumur, the school of Cameron and Amyraut.

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin argues the distinctive Saumur thesis: Adam's sin reaches his posterity only mediately, through the inherited corruption — never by immediate reckoning of a sin they did not commit. Fellow Reformed theologians rejected the view, but the book remains its classic statement.

Part only: Chapters 1–12 and 14, and the disputation up to Romans 5:14

Datec. 1645–1655 AD (written after the 1645 Synod of Charenton, and read in draft by Drelincourt by 10 December 1653; printed posthumously at Saumur, 1661; Reformed / Amyraldian circle)

The English is made from the 1661 Saumur Latin of chapters 1 to 12 and 14 and part of the later disputation. No earlier English was copied.

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Translated from Latin (Saumur 1661) (Latin)
Also checked Text extract of Caput Primum (Latin)
Also checked machine-read text of the 1661 volume (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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