On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §416 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right

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What was said against the preceding likeness overturns this one too. Yet I will add a few things. Just now you compared Adam to a King making war: now you compare the same man to a people rebelling against the King's ministers. But what has Adam in common with the seditious and tumultuous commons of some city, drawing even their own magistrates into the society of rebellion unless they curb it with all their might and clear themselves to the King? From this you would more easily conclude that the multitude's sins ought to be imputed to Adam himself than that one Adam's first actual sin ought to be imputed to the whole multitude of men. Next, do you think a just and equitable King would impute that crime of rebellion to those he knows for certain did not consent to the rebellion in that city? He doubtless discerns by his equity between rebels and non-rebels, the seditious and those constant in duty. Further, would it not follow much more nearly and surely that the sins of an impious multitude are imputed to a few pious men lurking among the wicked, than that one sin of one man, committed with no other man present—indeed existing—is imputed to all men? Yet God's justice abhors that imputation. Far be it from you, said Abraham Gen. 18:25, to do such a thing, delivering the just to death with the unjust, so that it be with the just as with the unjust: Far be it from you; shall the Judge of all the earth not do right? You see how strongly the father of believers thought it would clash with divine justice if the fewest just of a great rebellious and sinning city were involved in punishment with the multitude of citizens—and shall we his sons dare attribute to God a justice that imputes one man's fault to all, not only unto eternal death, but even unto that penalty which is itself properly the evil of fault and the cause of all sins? Far, far from us such a thought of our God, the world's Judge, whose equity and justice are most known to us!

Latin

Quae ad praecedentem similitudinem dicta sunt hanc ipsam quoque evertunt. Addam tamen pauca. Modo Adamum comparabas Regi bellum inferenti: Nunc eundem comparas populo rebellanti adversus Regis ministros. At quid habet Adamus commune cum seditiosa & tumultuante plebe alicuius urbis, in societatem rebellionis ipsos suos magistratus trahente, nisi eam coerceant pro virili, & se Regi purgent? Hinc facilius concludas multitudinis hominum peccata ipsi Adamo, quam unius Adami primum peccatum actuale toti hominum multitudini imputari debere. Deinde, putasne justum & aequum Regem id crimen illud rebellionis imputare, quos pro comperto habet in rebellionem non consensisse in illa urbe? Discernit proculdubio pro sua aequitate inter rebelles & non rebelles, seditiosos & in officio constantes. Praeterea, annon inde sequeretur multo propius & certius, multitudinis impiae peccata imputari paucis inter improbos delitescentibus piis, quam unius hominis peccatum unum, nullo alio homine praesente, immo existente, commissum omnibus hominibus imputari? Attamen ab illa imputatione Dei justitia abhorret. Absit tibi, dicebat Abraham Gen. 18. 25. Ut facias tale quidpiam, morti tradendo justum cum injusto, ut ita sit justo sicut injusto: Absit tibi; An judex totius terrae non exerceret jus? Vides quantopere pater credentium pugnare cum divina justitia credebat, si paucissimi justi magnae civitatis rebellis & peccatricis punitione cum civium multitudine involverentur, & nos eius filii audebimus Deo eiusmodi justitiam tribuere, quae unius hominis culpam imputet omnibus, non modo ad mortem aeternam, sed etiam ad eam poenam quae sit ipsa proprie malum culpae, & causa omnium peccatorum? Absit, absit a nobis talis, de Deo nostro, de mundi judice, cuius aequitas & justitia nobis notissima est, cogitatio!

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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)
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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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