On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §630 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: Words can name a nature before it acts

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So when the Lord says every bad tree bears bad fruit, he would gather poorly who denied that the unregenerate infants of unbelievers are bad trees because they do not yet bear bad fruit. No otherwise than if, reading that every bird flies, he concluded that a chick just hatched, because it does not yet fly, is not a bird.

Latin

Sic cum Dominus dicit omnem arborem malam malos ferre fructus, male colligeret qui infidelium irregenitos infantulos malas arbores esse negaret, quod non ferant malos fructus; haud secus certe ac qui legisset, omnem volucrem volare, male inde concluderet, aviculam recens exclusam, quod nondum volet, volucrem non esse.

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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.

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