On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §463 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: Ps 32:1 – 2 — no lynx-eye sees immediate Adam-imputation there

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Your second Argument you carve out from Ps. 32:1–2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed iniquity—by a method I may admire more than follow. For what eye of the mind, however lynx-keen, could see in those words the immediate imputation of Adam's actual sin to the whole posterity? You nevertheless try with many words to make me see it with you in them, but I cannot. Would that you had rewoven the force of your argument in applied syllogistic form, and not buried it under a great abundance of words; from which I cannot dig it out.

Latin

Secundum tuum Argumentum exsculpis ex Ps. 32. 1. 2. Beatus cui dimittitur praevaricatio, cui tegitur peccatum: Beatus homo cui non imputavit Dominus iniquitatem, ea arte, quam mihi mirari magis licet, quam assequi. Quis enim mentis oculus, ut ut lynceus, videre possit in illis verbis immediatam peccati actualis Adami toti posteritati imputationem? Tu tamen multis verbis efficere conaris, ut eam tecum in illis videam, sed non possum. Utinam tui argumenti vim adhibita forma syllogistica retexuisses, nec magna verborum copia obruisses; ex quibus eam eruere non possum.

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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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