On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §247 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 4: mors animae not from commination

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The only way out is to say: bodily and eternal death were not laid on him, yet the soul's death—privation of righteousness—was. I press against that. If the soul's death was laid on him, it was laid on him because the threat required it. But it was not laid on him because the threat required it. So that death was not laid on him.

The main argument holds. For the minor: if the soul's death was laid on him because required it, then bodily and eternal death were laid on him too, for the threat required those no less. Yet those deaths were not laid on him. So the soul's death was not laid on him because the threat required it. The minor is beyond dispute. The major, already plain, is confirmed because God had threatened bodily and eternal death no less than spiritual. If God's truth and justice required the spiritual death that day, the same truth and justice required those other deaths the same day—the reason is the same. I see nothing in the Learned Man's reply that dissolves this.

Latin

Nihil potest responderi, nisi, ei quidem inflictam non fuisse mortem corporis & aeternam, sed tamen inflictam fuisse mortem animae positam in privatione justitiae. Sed contra sic insto. Si inflicta ei fuit mors animae, ideo ei inflicta fuit, quia id exigebat comminatio. Sed non ideo ei inflicta fuit, quia id exigebat comminatio. Ergo ei inflicta mors illa non fuit. Major negari non potest. Minorem probo. Si ideo ei inflicta fuit mors animae, quia id exigebat comminatio, etiam ei inflictae fuerunt mors corporis & aeterna, quia hoc non minus exigebat comminatio. Attamen hae mortes non sunt ei inflictae. Ergo mors animae non est ideo ei inflicta, quia id exigebat comminatio. De minore nulla lis esse potest. Major, quanquam aperte vera est, tamen eo confirmatur, quod non minus mortem corporis & aeternam Deus comminatus fuerat quam spiritualem. Haec igitur si Dei veritas, & justitia exigebant ut eo die Adamo infligeretur, eadem, veritas & justitia, non minus exigebant, ut illae etiam mortes infligerentur eadem die; par, uti vides, ratio est. Quod huic argumentationi dissolvendae accommodatum sit, nihil animadverto in responsione Viri Docti.

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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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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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