On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §393 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: not norming God by human law; scandal reply

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as to what we add second: when we propose that law against traitors in this business, our mind is not that our thoughts of God's justice are to be measured by the norm of human laws. No such thought has yet entered our mind. But because those who deny the imputation of the first sin use this among other reasons—that our religion is brought into hatred with Jews and Gentiles by asserting this dogma, as attributing something unjust and cruel to the divinity—we teach by this example that what they themselves so often observe in their public judgments cannot seem unjust or barbarous to them. We do not therefore gather thus: Men impute fathers' sins to traitors' children. Therefore God also is to be thought to impute Adam's sin to posterity. But rather thus: To men, whether Gentiles or others, it does not seem unjust if in the crime of lese-majesty a son bears penalties for the father's sin. Who then among them can charge God with injustice if he punishes Adam's sin in posterity?—so that the example is used not to confirm the truth, but only to illustrate it and to vindicate it from the charge of injustice or monstrosity.

Latin

GAR. Sed quod secundo adjungimus, nobis legem illam adversus perduelles in hoc negotio proponentibus non ea mens est, ut putemus cogitationes nostras de Dei justitia ad legum humanarum normam exigendas esse. Nulla hactenus animum subiit cogitatio eiusmodi. Sed quia, qui peccati primi imputationem negant, hac inter alias ratione utuntur, quod religio nostra Judaeis & Ethnicis huius dogmatis assertione in odium adducatur, tanquam injustum aliquid crudele divinitati attribuens, nos hoc exemplo docemus, illis injustum aut barbarum videri non posse, quod ipsimet in suis publicis judiciis tam frequenter observant. Non ergo ita colligimus: Homines perduellium liberis peccata paterna imputant. Ergo & Deus censendus est peccatum Adae posteris imputare. Sed ita potius: Hominibus sive Ethnicis, sive aliis non videtur injustum, si in crimine laesae-Majestatis filius pro peccato patris poenas ferat. Quis igitur ex illis poterit Deum injustitiae arguere, si peccatum Adae puniat in posteris? Ut exemplum non ad confirmandam veritatem usurpetur, sed ad illustrandam tantum, & ab injustitia aut immanitatis accusatione vindicandam.

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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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