_Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Works of Charity._
_Quest._ I. What are the grounds, and reasons, and motives to charitable works?
_Answ._ 1. That doing good doth make us likest to God. He is the universal Father and Benefactor to the world. All good is in him or from him, and he that is best and doth most good is likest him.
2. It is an honourable employment therefore: it is more honourable to be the best man in the land, than to be the greatest: greatness is therefore honourable, because it is an ability to do good; and wisdom is honourable because it is the skill of doing good: so that goodness is that end which maketh them honourable, and without respect to which they were as nothing. A power or skill to do mischief is no commendation.
3. Doing good maketh us pleasing and amiable to God, because it maketh us like him, and because it is the fulfilling of his will. God can love nothing but himself, and his own excellencies or image appearing in his works; or his works so far as his attributes appear and are glorified in them.
4. Good works are profitable to men, Tit. iii. 8. Our brethren are the better for them: the bodies of the poor are relieved, and men's souls are saved by them.
5. In doing good to others we do good to ourselves; because we are living members of Christ's body, and by love and communion feel their joys, as well as pains. As the hand doth maintain itself by maintaining and comforting the stomach; so doth a loving christian by good works.
6. There is in every good nature a singular delight in doing good: it is the pleasantest life in all the world. A magistrate, a preacher, a schoolmaster, a tutor, a physician, a judge, a lawyer, hath so much true pleasure as his life and labours are successful in doing good. I know that the conscience of honest endeavours may afford solid comfort to a willing though unsuccessful man; and well-doing may be pleasant though it prove not a doing good to others; but it is a double, yea, a multiplied comfort to be successful. It is much if an honest, unsuccessful man (a preacher, a physician, &c.) can keep up so much peace, as to support him under the grief of his unsuccessfulness; but to see our honest labours prosper, and many to be the better for them, is the pleasantest life that man can here hope for.
7. Good works are a comfortable evidence that faith is sincere, and that the heart dissembleth not with God: whenas a faith that will not prevail for works of charity, is dead and uneffectual, and the image or carcass of faith indeed, and such as God will not accept, James ii.
8. We have received so much ourselves from God, as doubleth our obligation to do good to others: obedience and gratitude do both require it.
9. We are not sufficient for ourselves, but need others as well as they need us: and therefore as we expect to receive from others, we must accordingly do to them. If the eye will not see for the body, nor the hand work for the body, nor the feet go for it, the body will not afford them nutriment, and they shall receive as they do.
10. Good works are much to the honour of religion, and consequently of God; and much tend to men's conviction, conversion, and salvation. Most men will judge of the doctrine by the fruits. Matt. v. 16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."