fidence in these promifes, as of confidence in the promises of a perfon at perfect liberty.

Vows are promises to God. The obligation cannot be made out upon the fame principle as that of other promifes. The violation of them, nevertheless, implies a want of reverence to the Supreme Being; which is enough to make it finful.

There appears no command or encouragement in the Chriftian fcriptures to make vows; much less any authority to break through them, when they are made. The few inftances of vows which we read of in the New Testament were religiously observed.

The rules we have laid down

concerning proThus Jephtha's

mifes are applicable to vows. vow, taken in the fenfe in which that transaction is commonly understood, was not binding; because the performance, in that contingency, became unlawful.

* A&ts, xviii. 18. xxi. 23.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

CONTRACTS.

A

CONTRACT is a mutual promife. The obligation therefore of contracts; the fenfe in which they are to be interpreted; and the cafes where they are not binding, will be the fame as of promises.

From the principle established in the last chapter, "that the obligation of promises is to be mea"fured by the expectation which the promiser

any how voluntarily and, knowingly excites," results a rule, which governs the construction of all contracts, and is capable, from its fimplicity, of being applied with great ease and certainty, viz. That,

Whatever is expected by one fide, and known to be fo expected by the other, is to be deemed a part or condition of the contract..

The

The feveral kinds of contracts, and the order in which we propose to confider them, may be exhibited at one view, thus:

CHAP. VII.

CONTRACTS OF SALE.

TH

HE rule of juftice, which wants most to be inculcated in the making of bargains, is, that the feller is bound in confcience to difclofe the faults of what he offers to fale. Amongst other methods of proving this, one may be the following:

I fuppofe it will be allowed, that to advance a direct falfehood in recommendation of our wares, by afcribing to them fome quality which we know that they have not, is dishoneft. Now compare with this the defigned concealment of fome fault, which we know that they have. The motives and the effects of actions are the only points of comparison, in which their moral quality can differ: but the motive in these two cafes is the fame, viz. to procure a higher price than we expect otherwife to obtain: the effect, that is, the prejudice to the buyer, is alfo the fame:

for

for he finds himself equally out of pocket by his bargain, whether the commodity, when he gets home with it, turn out worse than he had fuppofed, by the want of fome quality which he expected, or the discovery of fome fault which he did not expect. If therefore actions be the fame, as to all moral purposes, which proceed from the fame motives, and produce the fame effects; it is making a diftinction without a difference, to eftcem it a cheat to magnify beyond the truth the virtues of what we have to fell, but none to conceal its faults.

It adds to the value of this kind of honefty, that the faults of many things are of a nature not to be known by any, but by the persons ́ who have used them: fo that the buyer has no fecurity from impofition, but in the ingenuousnefs and integrity of the feller.

There is one exception however to this rule, namely, where the filence of the feller implies fome fault in the thing to be fold, and where the buyer has a compensation in the price for the risk which he runs: as where a horse, in a London repofitory, is fold by public auction, without warranty; the want of warranty is notice of fome unfoundnefs, and produces a proportionable abatement in the price.

VOL. I.

L

To