On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §464 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: grant non-imputation beatitude; contested origin-vice as proper penalty

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The Psalmist testifies in general that one is blessed to whom sin is not imputed—namely, what one either committed or has in oneself; but which sin can rightly be imputed to us, or not imputed, he does not teach. You prove that one to whom sin is imputed is miserable: I concede. You add, if this is true in general of every sin, it is true also of original sin, which we contracted in Adam, and which seems to have had to be said from Adam. I concede this too. You subjoin that that vice of origin is the penalty of the first parents' first sin; and that, since you understand penalty properly so called, is the very thing which is in question between us.

Latin

Testatur Psaltes in genere beatum esse, cui peccatum non imputatur, nempe, quod vel commisit, vel in se habet; quod autem peccatum nobis possit jure imputari, vel non imputari non docet. Probas miserum esse cui peccatum imputatur, Concedo. Addis, si hoc verum est in genere de omni peccato, verum etiam esse de peccato originali, quod in Adamo contraximus, ab Adamo dicendum fuisse videtur. Concedo hoc quoque. Subjicis, vitium illud originis esse poenam primi peccati primorum parentum; id, quoniam poenam proprie dictam intelligis, id ipsum est quod inter nos quaeritur.

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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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