Contracts.

1. IF our Fathers have lost their Liberty, why may not we labour to regain it? Answ. We must look to the Contract, if that be rightly made we must stand to it; if we once grant we may recede from Contracts, upon any Inconvenien∣cy that may afterwards happen, we shall have no Bargain kept. If I sell you a Horse, and do not like my Bargain, I will have my Horse again.

2. Keep your Contracts, so far a Di∣vine goes, but how to make our Contracts is left to our selves; and as we agree upon the conveying of this House, or that Land, so it must be. If you offer me a Hundred Pounds for my Glove, I tell you what my Glove is, a plain Glove, pretend no Virtue in it, the Glove is my own, I profess not to sell Gloves, and we agree for an hundred Pounds, I do not know why I may not with a safe Conscience take it. The want of that com∣mon Obvious Distinction of Jus praecepti∣vum, and Jus permissivum, does much trouble Men.

3. Lady Kent Articled with Sir Edward Herbert, that he should come to her when she sent for him, and stay with her as long as she would have him, to which he set his Hand; then he Articled with her, That he should go away when he pleas’d, and stay away as long as he pleas’d, to which she set her Hand. This is the Epitome of all the Contracts in the World, betwixt Man and Man, be∣twixt Prince and Subject, they keep them as long as they like them, and no longer.