No wonder if good works are so rare, when it is evident that to do them sincerely and heartily as our trade and business, it is necessary that the whole soul be thus renewed by faith, and love, and self-denial, and mortification, and by a heavenly hope and mind. They are the fruits and works of the new creature (which is, alas, too rare in the world): "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them," Eph. ii. 10. Therefore our first and chiefest labour should be to be sure that we are furnished with such hearts, and then if we have wherewith to do good, such hearts will be sure to do it: such hearts will best discern the time and measure, as a healthful man's appetite will in eating; for they will take it for a mercy and happiness to do good, and know, that it is they that give that are the great receivers. It is but a little money or alms that the poor receive of us, but it is God's acceptance, and favour, and reward that we receive, which is in "this life a hundred-fold, (in value,) and in the world to come eternal life," Matt. xix. 29. But if we have little or nothing to give, such a heart is accepted, as if we had given as much as we desire to give; so that if you have a heart that would give thousands if you had it, God will set down upon your account, so many thousands given (in desire). Your two mites shall be valued above all the superfluities of sensual worldlings: "For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not," 2 Cor. viii. 12. But God taketh not that for a willing mind, which only saith, I would give if I should suffer nothing by it myself, or were I sure I should not want; but that which saith, I will serve God as well as I can with my estate while I have it, and deny my flesh, that I may have to do good with, and trust God for my provision and reward; for if there be a readiness to will, there will be a performance also out of that which you have, 2 Cor. viii. 11.
12. Such a holy, self-denying, charitable heart, with the help of prudence, is the best judge of the due proportion which we should give: for this willing readiness being supposed, prudence will discern the fittest objects, and the fittest time, and the fittest measure, and will suit the means unto the end: when once a man's heart is set upon doing good, it will not be very hard to perceive how much ourselves, our families, the poor, and religious uses should have; for if such a person be prudent himself, he hath always with him a constant counsellor, with a general rule, and directing providence; if he want prudence sufficient to be his own director, he will take direction from the prudence of others.
13. Such a truly willing mind will not be much wanting in the general of doing good, but one way or other will serve God with his estate; and then if in any particulars he should come short, it will comparatively be a very small sin, when it is not for want of willingness, but of skill. The will is the chief seat of all moral good and evil; there is no more virtue than there is will, nor any more sin or vice than there is will. He that knoweth not how much he should give, because he is not willing to give it, and therefore not willing to know it, is indeed the miser and sinfully ignorant; but if it be not for want of a willing mind that we mistake the proportion, it will be a very pardonable mistake.
14. Your proportion of the tenth part is too much for some, and much too little for others, but for the most, I think it as likely a proportion as it is fit for another to prescribe in particular, with these following explications.
1. He that hath a full stock of money, and no increase by it, must give proportionably out of his stock; when he that hath little or no stock, but the fruits of his daily industry and labour, may possibly be bound to give less than the other.
2. It is not the tenth of our increase, deducting first all our families' provision, that you mean when you direct to give the tenth (for it is far more, if not all, that after such provision must be given); but it is the tenth without deduction that you mean; therefore when family necessaries cannot spare the tenth, it may be too much (else even the receivers must all be givers): but when family necessities can spare much more than the tenth, then the tenth is not enough.
3. In those places where church, and state, and poor are all to be maintained by free gift, there the tenth of our increase is far too little, for those that have any thing considerable to spare, to give to all these uses.