On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §251 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 4: One word in a law cannot be both literal and figurative

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Finally he argues thus. Death is death said metaphorically; bodily death, properly. But who would think that in a law that had to be framed in the most ordinary words, one and the same term should be taken both properly and metaphorically at once—especially when I would not know 'to die the death' in a figured sense except perhaps at Luke 9:60?

Latin

GAR. Ultimo sic argumentatur. Mors spiritualis est mors metaphorice dicta; mors corporalis proprie. Quis autem existimet in lege, quae debuit verbis usitatissimis concipi, vocabulum unum, idemque debere accipi simul & proprie & metaphorice? praesertim cum morte mori figurato sensu, nescirem accipi, nisi forte Luc. IX. 60.

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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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