On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §274 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6: Oneness by origin is granted, oneness by representation unproved

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ll are said to have been one man in Adam not by specific or numeric unity, but by unity of origin—because all are of one blood, Acts 17:26, and every earthly man is by origin nothing but Adam, as Augustine speaks, Retractations Book 1, chapter 13—and by unity of representation: for by one Adam all were represented, because one Adam sustained the person of all, as theologians also teach with one consent, and as the most distinguished Amyraut does not deny in the Theses on the three covenants, Thesis 8. From that double unity the imputation of Adam's sin is gathered. Owledge unity of origin—although it is one thing for all men to be one man, or to be considered as one man, and another for all men to have one origin, that is, stock or principle. The latter follows from unity of origin, not the former. But I desire unity of representation to be proved to me from Scripture, and likewise that which is brought forward in place of proof, that one Adam by sinning sustained the person of all men. For I long to know whence that very thing is had. It is posited by some, but proved by no one.

Latin

GAR. 3. Unus homo dicuntur omnes in Adamo fuisse, non unitate vel specifica, vel numerica, sed tum unitate originis; quia omnes ex uno sunt sanguine, Actor. XVII. 26. & omnis homo terrenus nihil est origine, nisi Adam, ut loquitur Augustinus Retract. Lib. 1. cap. 13. Tum unitate repraesentationis: ab uno enim Adamo sunt omnes repraesentati, quia unus Adamus omnium personam sustinebat, ut & Theologi consentienter docent, & non diffitetur Clariss. Amyraldus Thesib. de trib. foeder. Thes. 8. Ex illa duplici unitate colligitur peccati Adae imputatio. PLAC. Agnosco unitatem originis: quanquam aliud est omnes homines esse unum hominem, aut considerari tanquam unum hominem, aliud omnium hominum esse unam originem, hoc est, stirpem, seu principium. Hoc ex unitate originis sequitur, non illud. Sed unitatem repraesentationis probari mihi e Scriptura cupio, ut & illud quod affertur probationis loco, unum Adamum peccando omnium hominum personam sustinuisse. Hoc enim ipsum unde habeatur, scire aveo. Ponitur enim a quibusdam, sed probatur a nemine.

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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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