On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §322 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6

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Next, to what end does he observe here that Christ's own righteousness is ours only by imputation, if he holds the same of the sin that is Adam's own—that it likewise is ours only by imputation? What does that do to explain the difference between Christ and Adam? Or if he does not hold that, he contradicts himself, seeing he has driven it home several times. Further, if there is something internal and inherent in us by whose desert we lie under condemnation, why, not content with that desert and that condemnation, do we want another sin placed outside us to be immediately imputed? You will say: that it may be the cause of this internal thing, which otherwise we would lack. God then delights in this internal sin, seeing that without any necessity He freely imputes to us that sin placed outside us, so that by the force of that imputation that internal sin may be produced in us which otherwise could not be produced. Is this to glorify God, and not rather to make Him (which I cannot pronounce without horror of conscience) the author of our sin?

Latin

Deinde quorsum observat hoc loco, justitiam Christi propriam, non esse nostram nisi imputatione, si idem censet de peccato quod Adami est proprium, id similiter non esse nostrum nisi imputatione? Quid enim hoc facit ad discrimen inter Christum & Adamum explicandum? Quod si id non censet, sibi ipse contradicit, quippe qui id aliquoties inculcavit. Praeterea, si est aliquid in nobis internum & inhaerens cujus merito condemnationi subjacemus, cur eo merito eaque condemnatione non contenti, volumus aliud peccatum extra nos positum immediate imputari? Nempe, inquies, ut sit hujus interni causa, quo alioqui careremus. Delectatur igitur Deus hoc interno peccato, quippe qui sine ulla necessitate libere nobis illud extra nos positum peccatum imputat, ut vi illius imputationis producatur internum illud in nobis peccatum, quod alioqui non posset produci. Hoccine est glorificare Deum, & non potius eum facere, (quod sine horrore conscientiae pronunciare non possum,) autorem peccati nostri?

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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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