CHAPTER IX.. Of Grace or Favour.

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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