To contract he opposes _gift, free-gift_, or _grace_, where there is no mutual transference of right, but one party transfers in the hope of gaining friendship or service from another, or the reputation of charity and magnanimity, or deliverance from the merited pain of compassion, or reward in heaven.
There follow remarks on signs of contract, as either express or by inference, and a distinction between free-gift as made by words of the present or past, and contract as made by words past, present, or future; wherefore, in contracts like buying and selling, a promise amounts to a covenant, and is obligatory.
The idea of _Merit_ is thus explained.

Of two contracting parties, the one that has first performed merits what he is to receive by the other's performance, or has it as _due_.

Even the person that wins a prize, offered by free-gift to many, merits it.

But, whereas, in contract, I merit by virtue of my own power and the other contractor's need, in the case of the gift, I merit only by the benignity of the giver, and to the extent that, when he has given it, it shall be mine rather than another's.

This distinction he believes to coincide with the scholastic separation of _merilum congrui_ and _merilum condigni_.
He adds many more particulars in regard to covenants made on mutual trust.