II. *It now only remains that I exhort the reader to labour after this perfection. Was I to exhort any one to the study of _poetry_ or _eloquence_, to labour to be _rich_ and _great_, or to spend his time in _mathematics_, or other learning, I could only produce such reasons as are fit to delude the vanity of men, who are ready to be taken with any appearance of excellence. For if the same person was to ask me, what it signifies to be a _poet_ or _eloquent_, what advantage it would be to him, to be a great _mathematician_, or a great _statesman_, I must be forced to answer, that these things would signify just as much to him, as they now signify to those poets, orators, mathematicians, and statesmen, whose bodies have been a long while lost among common dust. For if a man will be so thoughtful as to put the question to every human enjoyment, and ask what real good it would bring along with it, he would soon find, that every success in the things of this life, leaves us just in the same state of want and emptiness in which it found us. If a man asks why he should labour to be the first _mathematician_, _orator_, or _statesman_, the answer is easily given, because of the _fame_ and _honour_ of such a distinction; but if he was to ask again, why he should thirst after fame and honour, or what good they would do him, he must stay long enough for an answer. For when we are at the _top_ of all human attainments, we are still at the _bottom_ of all human misery, and have made no farther advancement towards true happiness, than those whom we see in the want of all these excellencies. Whether a man die before he has writ _poems_, compiled _histories_, or raised an _estate_, signifies no more than whether he died an hundred or a thousand years ago. III. On the contrary, when any one is exhorted to labour after Christian perfection, if he then asks what good it will do him, the answer is ready, that it would do him a good which eternity only can measure; that it will deliver him from a state of vanity and misery: that it will raise him from the poor enjoyments of an animal life; that it will give him a glorious body, carry him, in spite of death and the grave, to live with God, be glorious among angels and heavenly beings, and be full of an infinite happiness to all eternity. If therefore we could but make men so reasonable, as to make the shortest enquiry into the nature of things, we should have no occasion to exhort them to strive after Christian perfection. _Two questions_ we see put an end to all the vain projects of human life; they are all so empty and useless to our happiness, that they cannot stand the trial of a _second_ question. And, on the other hand, ’tis but asking, whether Christian perfection tends: and one single thought upon the eternal happiness it leads to, is sufficient to make people _saints_.