On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §488 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: Sustinui — imputation must be in Scripture, here if anywhere

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

I have sustained your assault; see whether you can sustain mine. For from here rises for me an argument overturning your opinion. You will certainly grant me that dogma concerning the imputation of Adam's actual sin to the whole human race, if it is true, if it must be believed, is taught somewhere in Scripture, the most absolute norm of our faith. You will also grant that, if it is taught anywhere, it is taught in this place, where the Apostle accurately explains whatever evil flowed from Adam into the human race. You will grant at last that whatever evils Adam communicated with his posterity, those the Apostle reduces to these two, sin and death.

Latin

Sustinui impetum tuum, vide an possis meum. Hinc enim mihi surgit argumentum tuam evertens sententiam. Dabis mihi profecto dogma illud de imputatione peccati actualis Adami toti generi humano, si verum est, si credendum est, doceri alicubi in Scriptura absolutissima fidei nostrae norma. Dabis etiam, sicubi docetur, doceri in hoc loco, ubi Apostolus quicquid ab Adamo mali in humanum genus manavit explicat accurate. Dabis tandem quaecunque mala Adamus cum posteris suis communicavit, ea ab Apostolo revocari ad haec duo, peccatum & mortem.

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