On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §224 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 4: foedus naturae invents supernatural; before Secunda

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Beyond that I would gladly know Garissoles' source for saying the covenant of nature—conditioned on natural justice—promised supernatural justice. Where does Scripture say so? Can bare contemplation of nature prove it by reasoning?

And where did he get the claim that Adam—earthly, from the earth, with an earthly paradise—did not have earth for his homeland? That erases the line between nature's covenant and grace's, between the first man and the second, and invents a divine will and promise beyond Scripture. No Christian—least of all a Reformed professor of theology—may risk that.

Latin

Ceterum libenter quaesiverim, unde habuerit Vir Doctus foedere naturae, cuius conditio fuit justitia naturalis, promissam fuisse justitiam supernaturalem? Id ne alicubi dicit Scriptura? An potest ratiocinando ex Naturae contemplatione colligi? Quaero etiam unde habuerit, Adami, qui e terra fuit, terrenus, & cuius paradisus fuit in terra, patriam non fuisse terram? Tollere certe videtur discrimen inter foedus naturae & foedus gratiae, primum hominem & secundum, & aliquid docere, immo Dei voluntatem quandam & promissionem confingere praeter Scripturam. Id quod omni Christiano, praecipue inter Reformatos Theologiae professori summa cura vitandum est.

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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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