On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §157 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 1: Confession XI vitium; Garissoles Chapter 5 – IX infant-death imputation

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You, observant colleague, hold the points above. But what of this last? It is cast in the words of our Churches' Confession, Article XI, which you yourself praise in chapter VII: We believe this vice is truly sin, which makes every person—even little ones still hidden in the womb—guilty of eternal death before God. We also affirm that after baptism this vice is still truly sin as to guilt. I believe this from the heart as agreeing with Scripture and with reason; overturn it and the very fabric of the theses you attack comes apart. Do you believe it? In chapters I-II of your tract and elsewhere you seem to say so; yet I fear you speak so to hide your view, for in other places you openly deny it, and a large part of your case rests on that denial. Hear your own words. Chapter V: Where death reigns and there is no guilt from one's own actual sin, there must be imputation of the first sin's guilt. Likewise: death reigned over infants; therefore the first sin's guilt was necessarily imputed to them. When you saw the reply that their guilt comes from inherent vice and hereditary depravity, you called it a cavil and concluded: if children in the womb or newly born are sinners, it is either because they have sinned in act or because the first parent's first sin is imputed to them—for no third way can make them sinners. One is called a sinner because of sin; no other sin can be imputed but that first. Read on. In chapter IX you speak more plainly: I do not see what original sin is if such imputation is denied. Could Pighius have put his mind more clearly?

Latin

Tu quidem, observande Symmysta, superiora credis. Sed de hoc ultimo quid sentis? Conceptum est verbis confessionis Ecclesiarum nostrarum Art. XI. quae tu ipse laudas Cap. VII. Credimus hoc vitium esse vere peccatum, quod omnes et singulos homines, ne parvulis quidem exceptis adhuc in utero matrum delitescentibus, aeternae mortis reos coram Deo peragit. Affirmamus quoque hoc vitium, etiam post baptismum, esse vere peccatum, quod ad culpam attinet. Hoc ego ex animo credo ut sacris literis consentaneum, immo rationi, neque everti potest, quin eo ipso thesium mearum quas oppugnas compactio et contextus luxetur. Tu vero num id credis? videris tale quid affirmare Cap. I. et II. tui tractatus, et aliis aliquot locis: sed vereor ne ita loquaris occultandae opinionis tuae gratia: Id enim aliis quibusdam locis exerte negas, eaque negatione tanquam fundamento pars non contemnenda hujus tuae disputationis nititur. Recognosce tua verba: non enim gravabor huc transferre. Cap. V. sic colligis, Ubi mors regnat, nec est reatus ex peccato proprio actuali, ibi necessario est imputatio reatus primi peccati. Item, Cap. V. mors regnavit in infantes. Ergo infantibus reatus primi peccati necessario fuit imputatus. Cum autem videres tibi responderi posse, reatum in illis esse a vitio inhaerente et depravatione haereditaria, tu hanc responsionem cavillum appellasti, et contra sic conclusisti, si pueri in utero matrum, aut recens nati, sunt peccatores, ideo sunt, vel quod actu peccaverint, vel quod primum peccatum primi parentis ipsis imputetur. Tertium siquidem dari non potest, quod illos constituat peccatores. Nam peccator quis dicitur ob peccatum; Nec ullum aliud peccatum potest imputari, nisi illud primum. Relege, si placet, quae sequuntur. Cap. IX. mentem tuam plenius aperis. Non video, inquis, quid sit peccatum originis si negetur ejusmodi imputatio. Potuisset-ne Pighius suam sententiam exprimere clarius?

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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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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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