Fathers

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §158

Man. Post. Cap. I: Placeus on ambiguity, Confession breach, consent dilemma; before Cap. II

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You add the reason: how then did death reign even over those who did not sin after the likeness of Adam's trespass, if Adam's sin was not imputed to them? Picture a newborn, or a child dying in the womb: what in him can be called sin? His will is idle of every act and cannot sin by its own choice. He has, you will say, seeds of sin—granted—but not yet sin properly, except that origin-sin by which he sinned in Adam. So his sin is sought not in him or from himself but in the first origin, the first parent; and that sin is nothing but Adam's voluntary disobedience, and so on. You therefore own no original sin but Adam's first actual sin imputed to us, and no guilt in infants but what springs immediately from that imputation. With what mind, then, do you call inherent corruption now simply sin, now original sin? So you have poured ambiguity and confusion into your case—harmful to me had I not spotted it and, as I do, cleared it away. I wonder, reverend Sir, that you, so openly leaving our Church's confession, could charge me—who cling to it—as if I had deserted it. It also grieves me that I cannot shield you, whom I love and who outshine others in doctrine and holiness, from inconstancy or from dissimulation: inconstancy, if you have sometimes held and sometimes not held that inherent corruption is truly sin and itself yields eternal death's guilt; dissimulation, if while you steadily held it is not sin you still said and pressed in places that it is, as if you truly believed it, and even claimed we do not disagree—when you could not miss that not only I, whom you set out to refute, but our Churches too hold that vice formally and properly, and, as the confession says, truly sin; and that those who with you urge first-sin imputation usually split original sin into two—imputed and inherent—and give each its own guilt of eternal death. I would cite witnesses if the books were not known to all and worn by every hand. So either you grant that hereditary corruption, apart from Adam's imputed sin, is truly sin enough to damn the human race, or you deny it. If you grant it, take back the reasons and answers you built in this tract on the contrary premise. If you deny it, this will be our one special quarrel, which I will gladly take up to defend our Churches' confession, which seems to me most true.

Latin

Subjicis rationem: nam quinam mors regnavit tunc in eos quoque qui non peccaverunt ad similitudinem transgressionis Adam, si hoc peccatum Adami non fuit illis imputatum? Finge puerum recens natum vel in utero ipso matris morientem, quid in illo est quod peccatum dici possit? voluntas in ipso ab omni actione vacat, nec potest propria voluntate peccare. Habet in se, inquies, semina peccati, valeat, sed nondum peccatum proprie, nisi peccatum illud originis, quo in Adamo peccavit. Ergo peccatum illius non in ipso, vel ex seipso, sed in prima origine, id est, in primo parente quaerendum est: Nec est aliud peccatum illud quam inobedientia illa voluntaria Adami etc. Tu igitur nullum peccatum originale agnoscis praeter primum illud peccatum actuale Adami nobis imputatum, nullum reatum in infantibus praeter eum qui immediate ex illa imputatione existit. Quo ergo vel animo, vel sensu, corruptionem inhaerentem modo simpliciter peccatum, modo cum epitheto peccatum originale appellas? sic enim in hanc tuam disputationem ambiguitatem et confusionem intulisti, noxiam mihi futuram nisi eam deprehendissem, ac, quod facio, sustulissem. Hic subit animum meum mirari, vir reverende, qui, cum tam aperte a confessione Ecclesiae nostrae abeas, potueris inducere in animum tuum, ut mihi, qui illi religiose adhaereo, quasi ab ea defcivissem, grandem dicam scriberes. Dolet etiam mihi quod te aliis doctrina et sanctitate praelucentem, et quem ex animo diligo, tueri non possim vel ab inconstantia, vel a dissimulatione: ab inconstantia quidem si corruptionem inhaerentem vere peccatum esse, reatum mortis aeternae ex sese fundens modo sensisti, modo non sensisti; a dissimulatione vero, si cum sentires constanter non esse peccatum, tu tamen peccatum esse aliquot locis dixisti et inculcasti, perinde ac si revera et proprie peccatum esse crederes, nec eo contentus, affirmasti inter nos ea de re nullam esse dissensionem, cum te fugere non posset, non solum me, quem refutandum sumpseras, sed Ecclesias etiam nostras vitium illud formaliter et proprie, et, ut loquitur confessio fidei, vere peccatum esse statuere; et eos ipsos, qui tecum imputationem primi peccati urgent, solitos esse peccatum originale in duo peccata dispescere, imputatum et inhaerens, ac suum utrique proprium Mortis aeternae reatum attribuere. Laudarem testimonia nisi libri omnibus noti essent, omnium triti manibus. Hic igitur aut consentis corruptionem haereditariam, seposito peccato Adami imputato, esse vere peccatum damnando generi humano sufficiens, aut dissentis. Si consentis, revoca eas rationes et solutiones, quas in progressu hujus tui tractatus contrariae hypothesi superstuxisti. Si dissentis, haec erit inter me teque unum singularis controversia, quam libentissime suscipiam pro tuenda confessione Ecclesiarum nostrarum, quae mihi videtur verissima.

About this text

Josue de la Place (Placeus) — Capita I–XIV partial of De imputatione primi peccati Adami from the 1661 Saumur Latin, through Man. Post. Caput X (GAR.1–3 Rom. 5.13 tip) / before PLAC on reatus-only. Honest partial; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

English follows the locked 1661 Saumur Latin of Capita I–XIV partial through Man. Post. Caput IX (eph-ho / eph-ho pantes) before eph-ho / eph-ho pantes, reconstructed from IA PDF page images with Vision OCR and pdftotext as check. No modern English was copied. Cap. IX deepen+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

IA deimputationepri00lapl. Densify: Capita I–XII + Caput XIV + Man. Post. Cap. II–VI through Cap. X Rom. 5:14 tip. Not whole Disputatio; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

Witnesses

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.