On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §640 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: only Adam & Eve then; he did not mean to sin in our place; cannot for non-consenters

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Certainly, just as at that time there was no human person in the world besides Adam and Eve, so no human person besides those two either could or ought to obey that law for that time. Nor did Adam sin with the mind of sinning on our behalf; and even if that had been his mind, it is in no one's power to sin in the place of another who does not consent. Nor did nature's law require that he sin in posterity's place, nor did it befit God's goodness and justice to effect and appoint that.

Latin

Certe quemadmodum tunc temporis nulla erat in mundo persona humana praeter Adamum & Evam, sic nulla praeter eos duos persona humana aut poterat, aut debebat legi illi pro illo tempore parere. Neque vero Adamus ea mente peccavit ut loco nostro peccaret, neque, si mens ea ipsi fuisset, in cuiusquam potestate est loco alterius non consentientis peccare. Neque id naturae lex exigebat ut posterorum loco peccaret, neque Dei bonitatem & iustitiam decebat id efficere & constituere.

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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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