On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §390 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: human judgments unsafe; prefer Scripture over example

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Even human testimonies, when religion and God's will are in view, do not seem safe enough. If those sentences are unjust, who dared to say they are not unworthy of God? Whether judges' sentences are just or unjust is not mine to decide; those parts belong to God, to whom they will render account of their judgments. Some are compelled by supreme Magistrates, for the republic's preservation, to do things in which they take no delight—but what does that make for the matter between us? Whether such sentences are just or unjust, is it not safer to judge of God's will and sentences from Scripture—the perfect rule of our faith, and the full revelation of God's will toward us—than from some human example?

Latin

Humana etiam testimonia, cum de religione, & voluntate Dei agitur, haud satis tuta videntur. Si injustae, quis ausus fuit eas esse non indignas Deo dicere? De sententiis Judicum anne justae, an injustae, meum non est judicare; Dei hae sunt partes, cui illi rationem judiciorum suorum sunt reddituri. Coguntur nonnulli a supremis Magistratibus conservandae Reipublicae causa nonnulla facere, quibus minime delectantur, sed quid hoc facit ad id de quo inter nos agitur? Sive justae sunt, sive injustae eiusmodi sententiae, annon tutius est de Dei voluntate & sententiis ex Scriptura judicare, perfecta fidei nostrae regula, & plena voluntatis Dei erga nos revelatione, quam ex humano aliquo exemplo?

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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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