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."
11. Consider how abundantly they are commanded and commended in the word of God. Christ himself hath given us the pattern of his own life, which from his first moral actions to his last, was nothing but doing good and bearing evil. He made love the fulfilling of the law, and the works of love the genuine fruits of christianity, and an acceptable sacrifice to God. Gal. vi. 10, "As we have opportunity let us do good to all men, especially to them of the household of faith." Heb. xiii. 10, "To do good and communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Tit. iii. 8, "This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou constantly affirm, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works: these things are good and profitable to men." Eph. ii. 10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Tit. ii. 14, "To purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Acts xx. 35, "That so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." Eph. iv. 28, "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." You see poor labourers are not excepted from the command of helping others: insomuch that the first church sold all their possessions, and had all things common; not to teach levelling and condemn propriety, but to show all after them that christian love should use all to relieve their brethren as themselves.
12. Consider that God will in a special manner judge us at the last day according to our works, and especially our works of charity: as in Matt. xxv. Christ hath purposely and plainly showed; and so doth many another text of Scripture. These are the motives to works of love.