On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §126 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 10: Placeus denies labefaction; native corruption forensic and moral

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I deny that refusing antecedent or immediate imputation of Adam’s sin weakens, in any way, the doctrine of Christ’s imputed justice. It pains me to watch a learned man, for the sake of his proof, abandon the teaching that native corruption carries guilt — a teaching the Protestant churches have stated and sealed in their public confessions. Native corruption can be read two ways: forensically, or morally. Forensically it is sin enough to damn us; morally it is a quality that fouls us by clinging in us. As sin that binds us under God’s wrath, justification answers it; as a foul quality inhering in us, sanctification answers it. That quality cannot be removed until its guilt is removed first. So in nature’s order, justification comes before sanctification.

Latin

Nego dogma de Non-imputatione peccati Adae antecedente seu immediata ullo modo doctrinam de imputatione justitiae Christi labefactare; mihique valde dolet, quod videam virum doctum, ut id probet, deserere doctrinam de corruptionis nativae reatu, publicis fidei confessionibus Ecclesiarum protestantium declaratam, & confirmatam. Corruptio nativa duobus modis spectari potest: uno forensi, altero morali. Priori modo consideratur ut peccatum nobis damnandis sufficiens: Posteriori vero ut qualitas nos sua inhaerentia polluens. Quatenus est peccatum nos irae Dei addicens, ei respondet justificatio: quatenus vero est qualitas foeda nobis inhaerens, ei respondet sanctificatio. Tolli autem ista qualitas non potest, nisi prius tollatur ejus reatus. Itaque sanctificationem ordine naturae justificatio praecedit.

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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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