On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §598 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: does antecedent imputation fit God's equity, glory, and truth?

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Whether that befits God's equity, I ask you, reader, to consider carefully. For since the end set before us ought to be God's glory, see, I pray, whether that is glorious to God, and whether it makes his equity and justice clearer. See also whether it befits his truth. We sinned in Adam; we merited the just sentence of death—and that without doubt neither falsely nor figuratively: yet we did not properly or personally sin when Adam sinned; we are only reckoned before God as if, when he himself sinned, we all had sinned. Is this judgment according to the truth? Glorious to God?

Latin

Id ne Dei aequitatem deceat, rogo te, Lector, diligenter considera. Cum enim scopus nobis propositus debeat esse Dei gloria, vide, quaeso, num id sit Deo gloriosum, & an eius aequitatem & iusticiam faciat clariorem. Vide etiam an deceat eius veritatem? peccavimus in Adamo, iustam mortis sententiam meriti sumus, idque sine dubio nec falso nec figurate: tamen non proprie sive personaliter peccavimus cum Adamus peccavit; sed tantum censemur apud Deum, ac si cum ipse peccavit, omnes peccassemus. Hoccine iudicium est secundum veritatem? gloriosum Deo?

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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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