A39675:1258
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.
There are difficulties in the Text. Estius reckons no less than ten expositions of it,1 and saith it is a very difficult Scripture in the judgment of almost all Interpreters. But yet I must say those difficulties are rather brought to it, than found in it. It is a Text which hath been racked and tortured by Popish Expositors to make it speak Christs local descent into Hell, and to confess their Doctrine of Purgatory; things which it knew not.
There are difficulties in the Text. Estius reckons no less than ten expositions of it,1 and saith it is a very difficult Scripture in the judgment of almost all Interpreters. But yet I must say those difficulties are rather brought to it, than found in it. It is a Text which hath been rackt and tortured by Popish Expositors to make it speak Christs local descent into Hell, and to confess their Doctrine of Purgatory; things which it knew not.
- 1Locus •i•c omnium penè interpretum judicio difficillimus. Estius.
But if we will take its genuine sense, it only relates the sin and misery of those contumacious persons, on whom the spirit of God waited so long in the Ministry of Noah, giving an account Of 1. Their sin on Earth. Of 2. Their punishment in Hell.
1. Their sin on Earth, which is both specified and aggravated. (1) Specified, Namely their disobedience, They were sometimes disobedient, or unpersuadable; neither precepts nor examples could bring them to repentance. (2) This their disobedience is aggravated by the expense of God's patience upon them for the space of an hundred and twenty years, not only forbearing them so long, but striving with them, as Moses expresseth it, or waiting on them, as the Apostle here: but all to no purpose, they were obstinate, stubborn and unpersuadable to the very last.