On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §550 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: Christ's satisfaction is credited only after faith unites us

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I ask also, when did we satisfy in Christ? I think when he suffered. Was Christ's satisfaction therefore then imputed to us? Then therefore we were justified, not yet existing, not yet believing. We are therefore not justified by faith, since our justification preceded both our existence and our faith. Add that we have no union with Christ as our spiritual and mystical head except by faith; it follows therefore that the imputation of Christ's satisfaction, or our justification, follows our faith. What reason is there why we should not similarly say that we do not have union with Adam as head of sinners except by the hereditary vice by which he communicated his sin with us? And so the imputation of Adam's sin is later than that vice.

Latin

Peto etiam, quando in Christo satisfecimus? opinor quando passus est. Num igitur tunc nobis imputata est Christi satisfactio? Tunc igitur fuimus iustificati, nondum existentes, nondum credentes. Non ergo per fidem sumus iustificati, quandoquidem iustificatio nostra tanto nostram & existentiam & fidem antecessit. Adde quod unionem cum Christo tanquam capite nostro spirituali & mystico non habemus nisi per fidem, sequitur ergo fidem nostram imputatio satisfactionis Christi seu iustificatio nostra. Quid est cur non dicamus similiter nos unionem non habere cum Adamo tanquam capite peccatorum, nisi per vitium haereditarium, quo suum nobiscum peccatum communicavit. Itaque posteriorem esse eo vitio peccati Adamici imputationem.

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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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