A discourse relating to the much-lamented death and solemn funeral of our incomparable and…

I. For the former of these, we may easily admit this being made perfect to be an Agonistical Phrase, as some of great Note and Worth have expounded it; and unto which that in the Beginning of this Chapter, of running the Race set before us (q. d. the Way laid out between the Lines on each Hand) doth plainly lead us. But it should hereupon be remote from us to think, that a mere relative Dignity, or any external Honours, are the Things we must principally understand to be conferred, or which these Adepti must be now thought to have obtained. 'Tis a real, inward, subjective Perfection, by ⟨p. 13⟩which they all become most excellent Creatures, that must be chiefly meant.

I. For the former of these, we may easily admit this being made perfect to be an Agonistical Phrase, as some of great Note and Worth have expounded it; and unto which that in the Beginning of this Chapter, of running the Race set before us (q. d. the Way laid out between the Lines on each Hand) doth plainly lead us. But it should hereupon be remote from us to think, that a meer relative Dignity, or any external Honours, are the Things we must principally understand to be conferr'd, or which these Adepti must be now thought to have obtain'd. 'Tis a real, inward, subjective Perfection, by ⟨p. 13⟩which they all become most excellent Creatures, that must be chiefly meant.

Perfection taken in the Moral Sense, doth, in the Language of the Holy Scriptures, contain a threefold Gradation.

First, At the lowest, Sincerity; as when our Saviour proposes to that Querist,