On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §382 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: nature vs grace; Spirit roots; apostasy expels habit

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The state of nature was mutable, whereas the state of grace is incorruptible. For the principle of the justice or holiness inhering in us is not mutable nature, but the immutable Holy Spirit, an indissoluble union with Christ, a firm purpose according to election; and so sin is from the old man, from the flesh, justice from the new man, from the Spirit: it ought not therefore seem strange if certain sins do not deprive us of the habit of justice—seeing that the roots of that habit are far distant from the roots of sin, and our spiritual life is eternal, and Grace is fitted to heal sin. But what was there in Adam that would hinder his actual apostasy from God from expelling habitual obedience or justice? For the last end being changed, as I said, all morals must of necessity be changed. Which itself is also seen when someone in heart passes either from a false religion to the true, or from the true to a false. How great a change of studies and of the way of living is accustomed to follow?

Latin

Status naturae erat mutabilis, cum status gratiae sit incorruptibilis. Principium enim justitiae, seu sanctitatis nobis inherentis, non est mutabilis natura; sed immutabilis Spiritus Sanctus, unio cum Christo indissolubilis, propositum secundum electionem firmum; itaque peccatum est a vetere homine, a carne, justitia est a novo homine, a Spiritu: non igitur mirum videri debet, si peccata quaedam non privent nos habitu justitiae: quandoquidem illius habitus radices valde distant a radicibus peccati, & vita nostra spiritualis est aeterna, & Gratia comparata est ad medendum peccato. Sed quid erat in Adamo, quod impediret, quominus actualis eius a Deo Apostasia expelleret habitualem obedientiam seu justitiam? Mutato enim, ut dixi, fine ultimo, moralia mutari omnia necesse est. Id quod ipsum etiam cernere est, cum quis corde vel e falsa religione transit ad veram, vel e vera ad falsam. Quanta enim consequi solet studiorum & vivendi rationis commutatio?

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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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