On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §467 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: Abraham justified by faith — no path to Adam-imputation

Click or tap any sentence to jump there. The side buttons skip a paragraph.

To firm this reason of yours you cite the Apostle's reasoning proving that Abraham was justified because he believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. Who would ever have hoped that from there it could be effected that Adam's first actual sin is immediately imputed to all humans, and indeed unto this penalty, namely hereditary corruption? For this is our question, whose affirmation was formally to be concluded by you. You must indeed be subtle, and a wondrous craftsman of arguments, who can fashion that imputation from places of this kind.

Latin

Ad firmandam hanc tuam rationem citas ratiocinationem Apostoli probantis Abrahamum fuisse justificatum, quia credidit Deo, & imputatum est ei ad justitiam. Quis unquam sperasset inde posse effici, primum peccatum actuale Adami omnibus hominibus imputari immediate, & quidem ad hanc poenam, corruptionem scilicet haereditariam? Nam haec est nostra quaestio, cujus affirmatio tibi formaliter concludenda fuit. Subtilem profecto te esse oportet, ac mirum artificem argumentorum, qui ex huiusmodi locis conficere illam imputationem possis.

Report a mistake in this passage

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.

Printed text used

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.

Report a mistake