On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §417 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: syllogism from Abraham; accepts for mediate

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us now drop the rhetorics, and what is said of a penalty that is itself in kind the evil of fault—something was said of this above, and occasion will return later to dispute it more fully. Let us attend only to the force of the argument, which can be woven thus. That the just be involved with the unjust in the same condemnation and death is alien to God's justice, Abraham witnessing. But in the imputation of another's sin, the just would be involved with the unjust in the same condemnation and death. Therefore the imputation of another's sin is alien to God's justice. T occasion, and how aptly, Abraham's testimony was brought by me the prudent Reader will consider if he please. Meanwhile the Argument the learned man has woven here I gladly take as my own, provided that in the minor "imputation of another's sin" is not understood of any whatever, but only of that about which the dispute between us is—namely that which precedes every sin inhering in us or committed by us.

Latin

GAR. Mittamus nunc quidem Rhetoricationes, & quod de poena dicitur, quae sit ipsa specie malum culpae, quia de hoc & aliquid dictum est superius, & recurret postea ea de re fusius disputandi occasio. Argumenti duntaxat vim attendamus, quod ita pertexi potest. Justos cum injustis eadem condemnatione & morte involvi, alienum est a Dei justitia, teste Abrahamo. Atqui in alieni peccati imputatione, justi cum injustis, eadem condemnatione & morte involverentur. Ergo alieni peccati imputatio est a Dei justitia aliena. PLAC. Qua occasione, & quam apposite testimonium Abrahami fuerit a me allatum Lector prudens, si placet, considerabit. Interim Argumentum quod hic vir doctus contexuit libenter pro meo habebo, modo in minore alieni peccati imputatio, non quaelibet intelligatur, sed ea duntaxat, de qua inter nos lis est, nempe antecedens omne peccatum nobis inhaerens aut a nobis commissum.

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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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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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