17. (II.) To will to do good to the neighbor is of charity. This is known, for it is believed that to give to the poor, to assist the needy, to relieve the widow and the fatherless, to endow ministers, to contribute to churches, to hospitals, and various pious uses, is of charity; and that to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, to receive the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick, come to those who are bound in prison, and many other things, are goods of charity. But yet they are goods only so far as the man shuns evils as sins. If a man does them before he shuns evils as sins they are external goods, yea, done for the sake of merit. For they flow forth from an impure fountain; and the things which issue from such a fountain are inwardly evils. The man is in them, and the world is in them.