On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §462 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: Adam's first actual not by nature owed to all as corrupting imputation

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But that first actual sin of Adam, whose author the serpent himself was, did not by its nature merit the moral corruption of all humans, nor was it by its nature of such a kind that, divine justice being preserved, it could not but be imputed to all humans unto fixing that vice in them. And if you think it was such by nature, you will also depart from the opinion of the great men who with you defend that imputation, and you will do us a great favor if you teach and prove it.

Latin

At peccatum illud primum actuale Adami, cujus ipsi author serpens fuit, natura sua non merebatur omnium hominum corruptionem moralem, nec erat natura sua ejusmodi, ut salva divina justitia non posset non imputari omnibus hominibus ad illud vitium ipsis infigendum. Quod si putes tale fuisse natura, & discedes a sententia magnorum virorum qui tecum imputationem illam tuentur, & pergratum nobis feceris, si id docueris & probaveris.

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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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