N00461:21
Promise-keeping a great duty. As it was delivered in a sermon / by Samuel…
Promise-keeping a great duty. As it was delivered in a sermon / by Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines from Proverbs]
Boston: printed by Benjamin Harris, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. A Promise is a Voluntary Obligation of one Person to another, wherein he stands bound to do something for him. In all Promises there are two Parties to be considered, One that makes it, and another to whom it is made. In making of a Promise the man becomes bound; he gives his word for the thing: either he was at liberty before, and now he becomes voluntarily Obliged, and so parts with his freedom; or else it was a Debt or Duty which he before was under a Moral tie unto, & by thus promising, he makes himself further engaged: hence there is supposed a Consent of the will on his part, who makes it, by which the man ties his own hands, & puts himself under the command of another; and it is to do something for him; this differenceth it from a threatening, which is to do against him; & hereupon there follows a performance to be requisite by virtue of the promise: after which the man is in Conscience bound to endeavour; this is clear by the light of nature.
1. A Promise is a Voluntary Obligation of one Person to another, wherein he stands bound to do something for him. In all Promises there are two Parties to be considered, One that makes it, and another to whom it is made. In making of a Promise the man becomes bound; he gives his word for the thing: either he was at liberty before, and now he becomes voluntarily Obliged, and so parts with his freedom; or else it was a Debt or Duty which he before was under a Moral tie unto, & by thus promising, he makes himself further engaged: hence there is supposed a Consent of the will on his part, who makes it, by which the man ties his own hands, & puts himself under the command of another; and it is to do somthing for him; this differenceth it from a threatning, which is to do against him; & hereupon there follows a performance to be requisite by vertue of the promise: after which the man is in Conscience bound to endeavour; this is clear by the light of nature.
2. Truth, as it refers to a promise, is firstly a Conformity between the mind of the promiser, and the thing which is promised; which ⟨p. 6⟩