On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §518 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: imputation as God's action entering by effects

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inally the imputation of sin is indeed that action of God, proceeding from God as judge, but tending into humans, as into a term, and in that respect entering or coming into a human, because of the effects which it produces in him, that is, because of the penalties with which it afflicts him. So curse is an action of God Gen. XII. 3. Malachi 2. 2. And yet it is said to enter into some humans Psalm 109. 18. The curse shall enter, like water, within him, and like oil into his bones. But that the imputation of sin is an action of God remaining inside God theologians hardly grant, who are accustomed to distinguish God's actions into immanent and transeunt; they call immanent those which terminate in God himself, as intellection, and volition, by which he understands and loves himself: transeunt, those which terminate in creatures, such as the actions of divine providence. But these I leave to be disputed by others.

Latin

GAR. 6. Denique imputatio peccati, est illa quidem actio Dei, a Deo tanquam judice profecta, sed in homines tendens, tanquam in terminum, & eo respectu in hominem intrans aut veniens, propter effectus quos in ipso producit, id est, propter poenas quibus eum afficit. Sic maledictio est actio Dei Gen. XII. 3. Malach. 2. 2. Et tamen intrare dicitur in homines aliquos Psal. CIX. 18. Maledictio ingredietur, velut aqua, intra eum, & velut oleum in ossa eius. Quod autem imputatio peccati sit actio Dei intra Deum manens Theologi vix concedant, qui cum Dei actiones distinguere soleant in immanentes & transeuntes; immanentes eas vocant, quae in ipso Deo terminantur, ut intellectionem, & volitionem, qua seipsum intelligit & diligit: transeuntes, quae terminantur in creaturas, quales sunt actiones divinae providentiae. Sed haec aliis disceptanda relinquo.

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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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