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On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §167

Man. Post. Cap. II §III: Placeus — distinction not false; Calvin quia intra nos; reatus mediate

Placeus. First grant it: suppose no necessity or great usefulness compelled me to distinguish Adam's sin this way; so long as the distinction is not false, not harmful, and not wholly useless, that is enough for me. Would that nothing less true or less useful appeared in his book! Next, it is not true that everyone who has spoken of imputing Adam's sin meant by that name only his actual transgression. My own words ought to have warned him of that—and Calvin's phrase, "because it is within us," which he deliberately left out because it hindered his case. Those words of Calvin stand in the Commentary on Romans 5.17; you have the whole place above at p. 92. The difference he marks there between Christ and Adam collapses unless Adam's sin, which is imputed to us, is within us and stands as a quality inhering in us. Third, when he adds that inhering sin and its imputation are not treated in this dispute, I say the same here—and I used the distinction so that I could say it. What is not in controversy among us had to be separated from what is, and every ambiguity and confusion cleared from this question. Neglect that, and those who oppose me in this cause do not fight me but their own shadow. Finally, when he says the question raised is whether from Adam's first actual sin some guilt and some liability to penalty rests on the posterity, that is either false or does not touch me: I constantly teach that from that sin some guilt and some liability to penalty—if liability is even the right word—does rest on the posterity. I only insist that it rests not immediately, but through the corruption that sin produced.

Latin

PLAC. Primum esto; nulla necessitate, vel magna utilitate compulsus peccatum Adae sic distinxerim, modo distinctio non sit falsa, nec noxia, nec prorsus inutilis, mihi satis est. Utinam in eius libro nihil minus verum, minus utile occurreret! Deinde verum non est, quod ait, quicunque de peccati Adae imputatione locuti sunt, eos nihil aliud eo nomine intellexisse, quam ipsius actualem transgressionem: cujus rei eum admonere debuerunt verba illa mea, ac ut verbis utar Calvini, quia intra nos est, quae, quia causae suae oberant, consulto omisit. Habentur autem illa Calvini verba Comm. in Rom. 5. vs. 17. integrum locum habes supra p. 92. Perit enim differentia quam illic observat inter Christum et Adamum, nisi peccatum Adae, quod nobis imputatur, intra nos sit, seque habeat ut qualitas nobis inhaerens. Tertio, Quod addit de peccato inhaerente ejusque imputatione in hac disputatione non agi, id ipsum dico hoc loco, ac ut dicerem distinctionem illam adhibui. Separandum enim fuit id quod non est inter nos controversum ab eo quod controversum est, removendaque ab hac quaestione omnis ambiguitas et confusio. Quo neglecto qui mihi in hac causa adversantur non me oppugnant, sed umbram suam. Denique quod dicit in quaestionem vocari, utrum ex primo illo actuali Adae peccato aliquis reatus et aliqua poenae dignitas posteris incumbat, vel falsum est, vel ad me non spectat: Doceo enim constanter ex illo peccato aliquem reatum et aliquam poenae dignitatem, si tamen dignitas appellanda est, posteris incumbere: tantum volo non immediate sed mediante corruptione quam peperit, incumbere.

About this text

New English, free to read. Open any section below.

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.