Man. Post. Cap. X: PLAC — judicial imputation always tracks some law; Canaan case is not universal judgment

the discussion was about law in general, not in species about an external law.

So the learned man strays from the argument he claims to address.

Next, it was not asked whether laws had been set for God according to which he must necessarily act.

That is plainly foreign to the purpose.

I contend only that every judicial imputation of sin is made according to some law.

For how can an act be judicial if it is not from a judge, and as befits a judge?

But a judge, when he imputes sin, when he condemns, when he punishes, has respect to a law, that justice may be done, that the law may be satisfied.

Otherwise I do not see why such an act is called judicial.

As for his saying that Ham the father’s sin was imputed by God to Canaan: if that is true, that imputation was not a judicial act; and so it did not reach all Ham’s posterity; or if it was judicial, among all Ham’s sons the author or sharer of that guilt was Canaan alone.

Certainly Noah, when he pronounced the curse, expressed that one’s name alone—and thrice—even omitting father Ham.