On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §346 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6: nature vs imputing God

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I therefore ascribe the propagation of this corruption into all Adam's posterity to vicious nature alone, from which nothing can be begotten except what is vicious. You, however, ascribe it to God, imputing the actual sin of one Adam to all men and inflicting that corruption on each and all of them to punish that sin. But if God had been unwilling either to impute to us the first actual sin of the first man, as he does not impute to us the other sins of the same man, or, having imputed it, had been unwilling to punish it with that punishment which is sin and the fountain of all other sins, we would be born without sin, incorrupt: but why did he will to inflict both? You flee to a justice which of course demanded that that actual sin be imputed also to us about to be born so many ages later, and being imputed be so punished. Whence you have such a justice I do not know, nor do I understand why it is called justice, and it seems to me to fight with the very notion of justice. But of this matter elsewhere.

Latin

Huius ergo corruptionis propagationem in omnes Adami posteros soli naturae vitiosae ascribo, ex qua nihil potest gigni nisi vitiosum. Tu vero eam Deo ascribis imputanti peccatum actuale unius Adami omnibus hominibus, illisque singulis & omnibus corruptionem illam, ut peccatum illud puniat, infligenti. Quod si Deus noluisset, vel primum peccatum actuale primi hominis nobis imputare, quemadmodum caetera eiusdem hominis peccata nobis non imputat; aut si imputatum noluisset punire ea poena, qua peccatum est, ac fons omnium aliorum peccatorum, nasceremur absque peccato incorrupti: cur autem utrumque indidit voluit? Confugitis ad justitiam, quae scilicet exigebat ut peccatum illud actuale, & nobis tot post saecula nascituris imputaretur, & imputatum sic puniretur. Eiusmodi justitiam unde habeatis nescio, nec cur justitia appelletur intelligo, & mihi videtur cum ipsa justitiae notione pugnare. Sed de hac re alibi.

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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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