A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

Can you for shame say that you Love God above all, and yet have more pleasure in prating over a pot of Ale, then in speaking reverently of God? Or would you be believed when you say, that your hearts are set on Heaven, when you have more delight in talking of any earthly trifle? Well! I shall leave it to your consciences, and to the judgement of any that will speak with Reason, whether the holy converse and conference of the godly, be not in it self a more Delightful thing, then all the merriments, the dotages and fooleries of the ungodly. If you think not so, it is because your relish and appetite is depraved, the Devil hath deluded you, and sin bereaved you of your wits.

2. I have told you of the Pleasantness of the Duties of Holiness, which are to be performed more directly toward God? Let us now consider of the rest of a Christian life: Which consisteth in our duties to be performed towards men: And these are all comprehended in the works of Charity and of Justice.

1. And certainly the works of Charity are Delightful. There is not a pleasanter work in the world then to do good. Even proud men find a great delight in the Reputation or Name of doing good: that they may be accounted the great Benefactors of the world, that is, to be as earthly gods among their neighbours, and as the Sun is to the lower world, that all may be below them, and live by their influence. This is the top of that prosperity that sinful ambition doth aspire to. And if the Name of Well-doing be so pleasant to the Proud, the Conscience of the thing it self should be more pleasant to the upright. Open bounty is the hypocrites glory: But to do good in secret is the believers pleasure; for their Father which seeth in secret, shall reward them openly: Yea the very delight of doing good, and especially a great or public good, a spiritual and everlasting good, is a reward unto it self. It is the speech of Christ recited by Paul,