A39675:100
Pneumatologia, a treatise of the soul of man
Pneumatologia, a treatise of the soul of man wherein the divine original, excellent and immortal nature of the soul are opened, its love and inclination to the body, with the necessity of its separation from it, considered and improved, the existence, operations, and states of separated souls, both in Heaven and Hell, immediately after death, asserted, discussed, and variously applied, divers knotty and difficult questions about departed souls, both philosophical, and theological, stated and determined, the invaluable preciousness of humane souls, and the various artifices of Satan (their professed enemy) to destroy them, discovered, and the great duty and interest of all men, seasonable and heartily to comply with the most great and gracious design of the Father, Son, and Spirit, for the salvation of their souls, argued and pressed / by John Flavel ...Pneumatologia, a treatise of the soul of man wherein the divine original, excellent and immortal nature of the soul are opened, its love and inclination to the body, with the necessity of its separation from it, considered and improved, the existence, operations, and states of separated souls, both in Heaven and Hell, immediately after death, asserted, discussed, and variously applyed, divers knotty and difficult questions about departed souls, both philosophical, and theological, stated and determined, the invaluable preciousness of humane souls, and the various artifices of Satan (their professed enemy) to destroy them, discovered, and the great duty and interest of all men, seasonable and heartily to comply with the most great and gracious design of the Father, Son, and Spirit, for the salvation of their souls, argued and pressed / by John Flavel ...
London: printed for Francis Tyton, 1685
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Those that are most curiously inquisitive into all other Beings,1 and put Nature upon the rack to make her confess her secrets, are in the mean time found shamefully slight and negligent in the study of themselves. Few there are that can prevail with themselves to sit down, and think close to such questions as these are, What manner of being is this Soul of mine? Whence came it? Why was it infused into this Body? And where must it abide, when Death hath dislodged it out of this frail Tabernacle? There is a natural aversation in Man to such exercises of thoughts as these, although in the whole Universe of Beings in this lower World, a more noble or desirable Creature is not to be found*.
Those that are most curiously inquisitive into all other Beings,1 and put Nature upon the rack to make her confess her secrets, are in the mean time found shamefully slight and negligent in the study of themselves. Few there are that can prevail with themselves to sit down, and think close to such questions as these are, What manner of being is this Soul of mine? Whence came it? Why was it infused into this Body? And where must it abide, when Death hath dislodg'd it out of this frail Tabernacle? There is a natural aversation in Man to such exercises of thoughts as these, although in the whole Universe of Beings in this lower World, a more noble or desirable Creature is not to be found*.
- 1The Nature of the Soul.
- *Qui igitur de Anima unquam disputarunt, ii certè non de re inani, & quae nihil praeter nomen habeat, sed de re gravissima, maximique momenti, quâ nihil sub coelo praestantius, disputâsse judicandi sunt. Zanc• de Anima, lib. 2. page 555.