On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §562 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: origin-only link would impute all parent sins; Saul's house

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

But conjunction with another, insofar as he is the man from whom we come, does not by itself suffice for a sin committed by another to be imputed: otherwise all Adam's sins, and all our parents' sins, could rightly be imputed to us, which, I think, no one would say: yet no other conjunction between us and Adam could have existed before the hereditary corruption communicated by him. Nor does the example of Saul help the learned man: For his sons, when they were sinners in themselves and worthy on account of their own sins of those penalties which they suffered, were then also partakers of that paternal sin, as is clear from the words of God himself, 2 Samuel 21. 1. For Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. Therefore not Saul alone was bloody, but his house or family.

Latin

At coniunctio cum alio, quatenus homo est a quo ducimus originem, sola non sufficit, ut peccatum ab alio commissum imputetur: alioqui omnia Adami, omniaque parentum nostrorum peccata, nobis possent iure imputari, quod, opinor, nemo dixerit: nulla tamen alia coniunctio nos inter & Adamum, ante communicatam ab eo corruptionem haereditariam, esse potuit. Nec iuvat Virum doctum exemplum Saulis: Nam eius filii, cum in se peccatores erant ac digni ob propria peccata illis poenis quas perpessi sunt, tum peccati illius paterni participes, ut patet ex verbis ipsius Dei 2. Sam. 21. 1. Propter Saulem, & domum eius sanguinariam, eo quod interfecit Gibeonitas. Non igitur solus Saul erat sanguinarius, sed eius domus seu familia.

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