On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §317 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6

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h it is asked. If as Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, so also Adam's sin is ours by imputation, why is Adam not called our sin as Christ is called our righteousness? Reply 1. That God speaks as He wills; that it is ours to be content with those phrases which occur in the Scriptures, and which set forth God's mind, so far as our salvation is concerned, clearly enough. Although therefore Scripture does not say Adam is our sin, yet it uses those locutions which manifestly mark imputation, of which enough was said before. Ot remember using this reason or interrogation, nor do I know whose it is: yet whether mine or another's, it seems fitted to refute the major of the argument on which immediate imputation usually most leans—As we are constituted righteous through Christ, in the same way we were constituted sinners through Adam: for it shows a memorable difference between Christ and Adam.

Latin

GAR. Quaeritur sexto. Si ut Christi justitia nobis imputatur, ita & peccatum Adae nostrum sit imputatione, cur non, ut Christus dicitur justitia nostra, ita & Adamus dicitur peccatum nostrum? Resp. 1. Deum loqui ut vult; nostrum esse iis phrasibus esse contentos, quae in Scripturis occurrunt, quaeque Dei mentem, quantum salutis nostrae interest, satis evidenter exponunt. Quanquam ergo non dicit Scriptura Adamum esse peccatum nostrum; eas tamen locutiones adhibet, quae imputationem manifeste designant, de quo fuse dictum est antea. PLAC. Hac ratione seu interrogatione usum esse me non memini, nec cuius sit novi: sive tamen mea, aut alterius sit, accommodata fuisse videtur ad refellendam majorem argumenti, quo solet imputatio immediata maxime niti, Quemadmodum constituimur justi per Christum, eodem modo constituti sumus peccatores per Adamum: ostendit enim inter Christum & Adamum memorabile discrimen.

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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 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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