On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §469 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: Chamier — Adam constitutes sinners causally, not formally

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For that (as most learned Chamier has it) constitutes us sinners not formally, but causally; of which matter in its place. These alone you found in the Old Testament by which you thought that imputation could be concluded. I could also have propped my replies with the authority of great Theologians, and from the same places drawn forth other arguments hostile to yours: but I consult brevity, and I do not wish to weary you as reader with too great a flood of arguments.

Latin

Id enim (ut habet eruditissimus Chamierus) nos peccatores constituit non formaliter, sed causaliter; qua de re suo loco. Haec sola invenisti in vetere Testamento, quibus illam imputationem concludi posse putares. Potuissem & responsiones meas magnorum Theologorum authoritate fulcire, & iisdem ex locis alia argumenta promere tuis infesta: sed consulo brevitatem, & nolo te nimia argumentorum profusione legentem fatigare.

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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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