On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §302 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6: erotema 2 — why Adam to posterity, not reverse

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It is asked second: Why is Adam's sin rather imputed to posterity than posterity's to Adam?This is because all posterity were in Adam radically and seminarily. Adam was not in posterity in this way. 2. That to impute sin is to inflict penalty on account of sin. But penalty always follows sin in the order of nature, never precedes it. Therefore Adam could not pay penalties for sins that did not yet exist, especially since not he, but Christ, ought to bear the sins of men, and by bearing to expiate them.

Latin

GAR. Quaeritur secundo, Cur potius Adami peccatum posteris, quam posterorum Adamo imputatur? Resp. 1. Hoc inde esse, quod posteri omnes in Adamo radicaliter & seminaliter fuerunt. Adamus in posteris hoc modo non fuit. 2. Quod peccatum imputari, est poenam propter peccatum irrogari. Atqui poena peccatum ordine naturae semper insequitur, nunquam antecedit. Non potuit igitur Adamus poenas dare peccatorum, quae nondum erant, praesertim cum non ipse, sed Christus peccata hominum portare debuerit, & portando expiare.

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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 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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