On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §452 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: conscience recoils — God punishing infants by bare imputation

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For it vehemently offends me that you, and certain other brothers of ours, say that God punishes all humans, even little children, with death of the body (and eternal), indeed with death of the soul, which formally is sin, for an actual sin which is theirs in no way, except by imputation, because God imputes it to them. Conscience shudders even to think it, and that he may give you and them another mind, I earnestly beg the Lord from the heart.

Latin

Me enim vehementer offendit, quod tu, & alii quidam fratres nostri, dicitis, Deum omnes homines, etiam puerulos, punire morte corporis (& aeterna) immo morte animae, quae formaliter peccatum est, ob peccatum actuale quod eorum non est ullo modo, nisi imputatione, quia Deus illud ipsis imputat. Id vel cogitare horret conscientia, ac ut aliam tibi & illis mentem det, Dominum supplex ex animo precor.

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About this text

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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