A39675:127
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.
IV. It is an immortal Substance.4
- 4An immortal Substance.
The simplicity and spirituality of its nature of which I spake before, plainly shows us, that it is in its very nature designed for Immortality: for such a being or Substance as this, hath none of the seeds of Corruption and Death in its nature, as all material and compounded Beings have. It hath nothing within it tending to dissolution: No jarring Elements, ⟨p. 18⟩no contrary qualities are found in Spirits, as there are in other Creatures of a mixed nature. Physicians and Philosophers have disputed and contended eagerly about the true causes of natural Death, *and whilst they have been contending about the way, they have come to the end. The ingress of the Soul is obscure, and its egress not clear. But this seems to be the thing in which they generally centre, that the expense and destruction of the †natural moisture, or radical balsam, as others call it, which is as the Oil that maintains natural heat, or the Bridle that restrains that flame of life from departing (as others express it); this is the cause of natural Death. Others *assign the unequal reparation of the parts of the body, as the cause of death. But be it one or other, 'tis evident, the Soul which consists neither of contrariant qualities, nor of dissimilar parts, must be above the reach and stroke of Death. For if the Soul dye, it must be either from some seeds and principles of Death and Corruption within it self, or by some destructive power without it self. In it self you see there is no seed or principle of death; and if it be destroyed by a power without it self, it must be either by the stroke of some Creature, or from the hand of God that first formed and created it: But the hand and power of no Creature can destroy it; creature power reaches no farther than the body,