On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §307 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6: Whether only acts, and not habits, can be imputed

Click or tap any sentence to jump there. The side buttons skip a paragraph.

How foreign that is from the doctrine of those by whose labors God reformed the Church, no one not quite a stranger in their books fails easily to see. Ince in the imputation of another's sin not habits but actions are imputed, as can appear to anyone who runs through all those examples produced above in great number, what wonder if also in this case not a habit but only Adam's act is remembered? its are sins, if they make those in whom they are guilty, why can they not be imputed? Certainly, no less than our actual sins, they were imputed to our Surety, that He might satisfy for their guilt. And if any imputation of others' sins was made, whence do you have it that actual sins were imputed separated from habitual ones? And even if that could be proved, still there is a peculiar reason in the habit of Adam's corruption, which was a sin of nature, while its cause, actual disobedience, was rather a sin of the person; the former is propagated with nature, the latter not likewise.

Latin

Quod quam sit alienum a doctrina eorum, quorum opera Deus usus est ad reformandam Ecclesiam, nemo in eorum libris non plane hospes non facile perspicit. GAR. 2. Cum in alieni peccati imputatione, non habitus, sed actiones imputentur, sicut patere potest omnia illa exempla percurrenti, quae supra magno numero producta sunt, quid mirum, si etiam in ista causa non habitus, sed actio tantum Adami memoratur? PLAC. Si habitus sunt peccata, si reos faciunt eos in quibus sunt, quid est cur non possint imputari? Certe, non minus quam actualia nostra, imputata sunt vadi nostro, ut pro eorum reatu satisfaceret. Alienorum autem peccatorum si qua facta est imputatio, unde habes separata ab habitualibus imputata fuisse peccata actualia? Et ut id probari posset, tamen peculiaris est ratio habitus corruptionis Adami, qui fuit peccatum naturae, cum eius causa inobedientia actualis fuerit potius peccatum personae; Ille propagatur cum natura, haec non item.

Report a mistake in this passage

About this text

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.

Printed text used

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.

Report a mistake