*9. This imperfect piety is farther condemned by Christian prudence as very absurd. If we did not intend to go through, why did we set out? If we did, why do we stop? If we think there is no reason in religion, why do we any thing? But if we think there is, why don’t we do enough? For the same reason that we do so much, why don’t we do more? For either religion has truth on its side, or not. If not, why do we take so much labour _needlesly_? But if it has, why do we take so much labour _in vain_? ’Tis, I own, a strange piece of even brutal indifference, to do nothing in order to our eternal happiness: and, yet, methinks, to do a part only, has something in it more extravagant than the other. He that does nothing, whatever he loses besides, has yet no labour to lose. But to labour by halves, is to lose the same good, and all that we do in order to it. The atheist and libertine have something to pretend; but the half-religious has no excuse; since that very religion he has will condemn him, as an inconsistent, unprincipled fool. 10. The last censure of Christian prudence upon the half-way state of piety, is, that it is very unhappy, I mean even in this world. The almost Christian is the _double-minded man_ St. _James_ speaks of, who has two wills, one for God and another for the world, between which he variously fluctuates. Such an one is _unstable in all his ways_: he is a mixed, doubtful, unsettled, wavering creature, never out of perplexities and intanglements, always disconformable to himself, doing what he would not, and not doing what he would and should, never long satisfied with himself. He has indeed a kindness for religion, but he has a greater kindness for something else; so that his religion just serves to disturb the enjoyment of his lusts, as his lusts to deprive him of the comfort of his religion. Nor can he be perfectly at peace with himself, but by being thoroughly wicked or thoroughly good. So wicked as to _have his conscience sear’d with a hot iron_, or so good as to act up to his principles. He must be of a single mind, one way or the other, before he can be at rest. And yet this double-mindedness is the state in which most men chuse to live and die, having religion enough to disturb them in their sins, but not enough to engage them to part with them.