On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §711 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 10: that chain denies innate-corruption reatus (Pighius reef); one warning to a brother

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What is it to deny the guiltf inherent vice or innate corruption, if this is not it?

I would think these things had slipped from you, carried off by the imprudent heat of dispute onto the reef of Pighius’s error, did I not see you long stuck and turning in proving and pressing this very point—which, for the love with which I pursue you, I deeply regret has been done by you.

Yet I have no doubt that, once warned, you will at once draw your foot back from this error, which you yourself in Cap. 2 of this treatise of yours have refuted, or at least put yourself forward as refuting.

I certainly would refute it with far more, if I had business with Pelagius, or with Pighius, or with some Papist (though the Papists confess this inherent vice to be sin before baptism, but deny it after baptism).

Now, since my matter is with you—brother, fellow-worker, professing and teaching the Reformed religion—I judge it enough to have warned you even once.

Latin

Quid est negare vitii inhaerentis seu corruptionis innatae reatum, si hoc non est? Putarem tibi ista excidisse imprudenti aestu disputationis abrepto in Pighiani erroris scopulum, nisi te viderem diu haerentem & versantem in hac re probanda, & inculcanda: quod a te factum esse, pro eo quo te prosequor amore, vehementer doleo. Dubium autem mihi non est quin admonitus statim pedem ex hoc errore referas, quem tu ipse Cap. 2. huius tui tractatus refutasti, aut saltem refutare prae te tulisti. Ego certe multo pluribus refutarem si mihi aut cum Pelagio, aut cum Pighio, aut cum Pontificio aliquo (quanquam Pontificii hoc vitium inhaerens ante baptismum peccatum esse confitentur, sed post baptismum negant) negotium esset. Nunc cum sit mihi res tecum, fratre, synamista, religionem reformatam profitente & docente; te vel semel monuisse satis esse puto.

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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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