A39675:1116
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.
This Doctrine of the separation of the Spirits of the Just from their Bodies, as it lies before you in this Discourse, affords a singular help to all the people of God, to entertain lovely and pleasant thoughts of that day, to make death not only an unregretted, but a most pleasant and desirable thing to their Souls.
THis Doctrine of the separation of the Spirits of the Just from their Bodies, as it lyes before you in this Discourse, affords a singular help to all the people of God, to entertain lovely and pleasant thoughts of that day, to make death not only an unregretted, but a most pleasant and desirable thing to their Souls.
I know there is a pure, simple, natural fear of death, from which you must not expect to be perfectly freed by all the Arguments in the World. And there is a reverential awful fear of death, which it would be your prejudice and loss to have destroyed. You will have a natural, and ought to have a reverential fear of death: the one flows from your sensitive, the other from your sanctified nature.
But it is a third sort of fear which doth you all the mischief, a fear springing in gracious Souls out of the weakness of their Graces, and the strength of their unmortified affections. A fear arising partly out of the darkness of our minds, and partly out of the sensuality and earthliness of our hearts; this fear is that which so convulseth our Souls when death is near and embitters our lives, even whilst it is at a distance. He that hath been over-heated in his affections to this World, and over-cooled by diversions and temptations, neglects and intermissions, to that World; cannot choose but give an unwilling shrug, if not a frightful screech at the appearance of death.
But it is a third sort of fear which doth you all the mischief, a fear springing in gracious Souls out of the weakness of their Graces, and the strength of their unmortified affections. A fear arising partly out of the darkness of our minds, and partly out of the sensuality and earthlyness of our hearts; this fear is that which so convulseth our Souls when death is near and imbitters our lives, even whilst it is at a distance. He that hath been over-heated in his affections to this World, and over-cooled by diversions and temptations, neglects and intermissions, to that World; cannot chuse but give an unwilling shrug, if not a frightful screech at the appearance of death.