On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §178

Man. Post. Cap. II duplex: Est igitur quaestio — Immediata defined; Placeus denies

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So the question between us concerns only Adam's first sin in the first sense—his actual disobedience, that inward and outward act by which he broke God's law, cut off from the habitual corruption that followed it: is that act imputed to us at birth? A bare no will not settle it; the attribute of the question must again be distinguished. One may conceive a twofold imputation: Immediate and Mediate, or—same point in other words—Antecedent and Consequent. By Immediate I mean the only imputation I meant to deny in the theses you undertook to refute: the view that Adam's act itself—his eating the forbidden fruit—is charged to all his posterity (Christ excepted) immediately, simply because they are Adam's children, unto the two punishments properly so called: loss of original righteousness (which you call spiritual death) and eternal death. That alone I have denied—because Scripture, the adequate rule of our faith, does not teach it; because it clashes with Scripture; because it makes God the author of sin; because it dishonors God's justice; because it would make Christ a sinner by nature; and because it drags other absurdities that cloud the purity and glory of the Christian religion. Would that our brothers and fellow servants, warned by those theses, had neither wholly scorned them nor weighed them with contempt!

Latin

Est igitur quaestio inter nos instituta duntaxat de primo peccato Adami sumpto primo modo, hoc est, de actuali ejus inobedientia, de actione illa interna & externa, qua Dei legem transgressus est actu, praecisa ab habituali corruptione, qua actionem illam secuta est: num ea nobis nascentibus imputetur? Cui quaestioni nondum negatione simplici, sed distinctione rursus satisfaciendum videtur. Est enim ejus distinguendum attributum. Potest enim animo concipi duplex imputatio. Immediata & Mediata, vel (ut idem aliis verbis dicam) Antecedens & Consequens. Immediatam voco eam, quam solam thesibus, quas tu refutandas tibi sumpsisti, negare volui; qua putatur actio illa Adami, hoc est, vetiti fructus Manducatio ejus posteris omnibus (Christo excepto) proxime, immediate, hoc ipso quod filii sunt Adami, imputari ad duas istas poenas proprie dictas, privationem justitiae originalis quam mortem spiritualem appellas, & mortem aeternam. Hanc solam imputationem actionis illius ego negavi, quia non docetur in sacris literis adaequata fidei nostrae norma, quia pugnat cum sacris literis, quia Deum facit authorem peccati, quia Dei justitiam dehonestat, quia sequitur ex ea Christum esse natura sua peccatorem, quia alia nonnulla trahit secum absurda, mirabilem religionis Christianae puritatem & splendorem obscurantia, quae utinam fratres & conservi nostri a me per theses moniti, aut non prorsus contempsissent, aut non contemptim expendissent!

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.