Note 16 — Chapter XIV · OF LAWS AND TRESPASSES.

Contracts oblige us.] To be obliged, and to be tied being obliged, seems to some men to be one and the same thing; and that therefore here seems to be some distinction in words, but none indeed. More clearly therefore, I say thus: that a man is obliged by his contracts, that is, that he ought to perform for his promise sake; but that the law ties him being obliged, that is to say, it compels him to make good his promise for fear of the punishment appointed by the law.