On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §480 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: speak distinctly — one original or two? Pighius vs churches

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Speak, I beg and ask you, more distinctly and more clearly: for nothing so hinders the investigation of truth as either ambiguity of speech, or the inconstancy and slipperiness of speech of the one with whom you have to do. If, as some do, you believe two original sins, one imputed, the other inhering in us, why nowhere do you say that openly? If you believe only one, say constantly, either with Pighius that it is Adam's actual sin imputed to us all, or with the confession of faith of our Churches that it is hereditary corruption, or inhering vice: and do not mix or crush those two which according to your opinion stand a maximum interval apart from each other.

Latin

Loquere, te rogo & quaeso, distinctius & magis enucleate: nihil enim adeo veritatis indagationi officit, ac vel ambiguitas orationis, vel ejus cui tecum res est inconstantia & lubricitas sermonis. Si, quod nonnulli faciunt, duo credis peccata originalia, unum imputatum, alterum nobis inhaerens, cur nullo loco id dicis aperte? Si non nisi unum credis, dic constanter, aut cum Pighio id esse peccatum actuale Adami nobis omnibus imputatum, aut cum fidei confessione nostrarum Ecclesiarum corruptionem haereditariam, seu vitium inhaerens: nec duo ista permisce aut contunde, quae secundum tuam sententiam maximo intervallo inter se distant.

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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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