CHAPTER IX.

OF GRACE OR FAVOUR.

_Grace_ is that virtue, by which a man is said to do a good turn or to do service to a man in need, not for his own, but for his cause to whom he does it.

_Great_ grace is when the need is great; or when they are hard or difficult things that are conferred; or when the time is seasonable; or when he that confers the _favour_, is the only or first man that did it.

_Need_ is a desire, joined with grief, for the absence of the thing desired. _Grace_ therefore it is not, if it be done to one that needs not. Whosoever therefore would prove that he has done a _grace_ or _favour_, must show that he needeth it to whom it was done.

_Grace_ it is not, which is done by chance. Nor which is done by necessity. Nor which has been requited. Nor that which is done to one’s enemy. Nor that which is a trifle. Nor that which is nought, if the giver know the fault.

And in this manner a man may go over the predicaments, and examine a benefit, whether it be a _grace_ for being _this_, or for being _so much_, or for being _such_, or for being _now_, &c.

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