*11. And now methinks, I hear one saying within himself, _Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian_. Alas! why not _quite_? Is it that we want the art of address, that we do not touch the right spring of your soul? But sure our cause has weight enough to bear itself out, and to supply any defect in the management of it. For is there not truth and reason enough in religion, to gain a reasonable creature? Or can any motive have a greater force or persuasion, than the joys of heaven and the pains of hell? Or do you question whether God be able to reward your entire love and compleat obedience? If you indeed _believe that_ God _is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him_, as even your indifferent way of serving him seems to suppose, then you must needs think it wisdom, to lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees; to be heartily and thoroughly religious, and not to be guilty of so inconsistent a folly as to take _some_ pains all your life for heaven, and yet go at last to hell. 12. Considering then the insufficiency, the absurdity, and the unhappiness of a half religion, let us instantly labour _to fill up the things that are behind_, that are wanting to the measure of our righteousness. Let us earnestly endeavour to bring ourselves under the full power and influence of religion, that it may have its due work upon our hearts and lives, that we may _be perfect, entire, and wanting nothing_: always imploring the Holy Spirit of God, by the victorious sweetness of his divine grace, to give the last finishing to that holy birth, he is forming in us, that it may _come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of_ Christ: that so, according to the apostle’s wish, we may be both almost, and altogether Christians! CHAPTER III. _Of the subordinate means that serve to assist us in keeping the commandments of God._ 1. WE have seen that the immediate means to happiness are the commandments of God. We come now to consider the subordinate means to it, which serve to assist us in the keeping of those commandments. And these are of two sorts: either such as are appointed and commanded by God, or such as are recommended by human prudence.