On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §315 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6: being before sinning; generative presupposed

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For if sinning follows being, as it certainly ought (for of what is not there are no accidents), the act of generating is that by whose force we first are; this ought to seem to follow, and in it to be founded that act by whose force we first are sinners; at least this does not make us sinners except by means of that: and so it presupposes it: for to sin presupposes to be, and prior in the order of nature is that we become than that we become sinners. If therefore we were sinners by imputation of another's sin which becomes ours, that imputation ought to follow something by which we were humans, seeing that in nature's order we are humans before we are sinners, and the subject is prior to its accident.

Latin

Nam si peccare sequitur esse, ut certe debet (non entis enim non sunt accidentia) actus generandi is est cuius vi primum sumus, hunc sequi debere videtur, & in eo fundari is actus cuius vi primum peccatores sumus; saltem hic nos non facit peccatores, nisi illo mediante: itaque illum praesupponit: peccare enim praesupponit esse, & prius est naturae ordine nos fieri, quam fieri peccatores. Si ergo fuimus peccatores imputatione alieni peccati quae fit nostrum, ea imputatio sequi debet aliquid quo fuimus homines, siquidem ordine naturae prius sumus homines quam peccatores, prius est subjectum quam eius accidens.

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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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