On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §78 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: Inhering vice may oppose liberating justice

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For what forbids an inhering vice, insofar as it makes us guilty and worthy of penalty, from being set opposite that justice which frees us from that guilt and penalty — as we have seen the greatest men judged? Not only does nothing forbid it; that very opposition requires it. For κρίμα is from justice, δώρημα from grace. Justice assigns to each only what is his own; grace gives what was otherwise not ours, but another's.

Latin

Quid enim prohibet, vitium inhaerens quatenus nos facit reos & poena dignos ei justitiae opponi, quae nos ab eo reatu & poena liberat, uti vidimus censuisse maximos viros? Id non modo nihil prohibet, sed ipsa illa oppositio exigit. Est enim κρίμα ex justitia, δώρημα ex gratia. Justitia nonnisi suum cuique tribuit; gratia donat id quod alioqui nostrum non erat, sed alienum.

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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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