On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §592 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: alienum peccatum can merit; Saul's sons

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And yet even those who sin by another's sin, that is, to whom another's sin is imputed, also merit just condemnation. For Saul's sons sinned by another's, namely the father's, sin, and yet they suffered the just condemnation of death by God's command, and so merited it, because God's judgments are just. And the sins by which the fathers actually sinned are not properly the sons' sins, because they were not personally committed by them; and yet according to the Decalogue's threat, because of them the sons incur various penalties and just condemnation. So therefore we can have sinned in Adam so as to have merited the just sentence of death, and yet we need not for that reason come to this, that we say we properly or personally sinned when Adam sinned; but only that we are so reckoned before God, as if when he himself sinned all of us had sinned.

Latin

At etiam qui alieno peccato peccant, id est, quibus alienum peccatum imputatur, & iustam condemnationem merentur. Nam filii Saulis peccaverunt alieno, nempe patris, peccato, & tamen iustam mortis condemnationem ex Dei mandato perpessi sunt, adeoque meruerunt, quia iusta sunt Dei iudicia. Et peccata, quibus patres actu peccarunt, non sunt proprie peccata filiorum, quia non sunt ab iis personaliter patrata; & tamen iuxta Decalogi comminationem, propter ea filii in varias poenas & iustam condemnationem incurrunt. Ita ergo possumus in Adamo peccasse, ut iustam mortis sententiam meriti simus, & tamen non ideo huc deveniendum est ut dicamus nos proprie sive personaliter peccasse, cum Adamus peccavit; sed tantum ita censeri apud Deum, ac si cum ipse peccavit omnes peccassemus.

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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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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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