A39675:1293
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.
And as the Spirit of man hath the most delicate and exquisite sense of misery; so it hath a vast capacity to receive, and let in the fullness of anguish and misery into it: it is a large vessel, called, Rom. 9.22. a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. The large capacity of the Soul is seen in this, that it is not in the power of all the creatures in the World to satisfy and fill it. It can drink up (as one speaks) all the rivers of created good, and its thirst not quenched by such a draught; but after all, it cries, Give, give. Nothing but an infinite God can quiet and satisfy its appetite and raging thirst.
And as the Spirit of man hath the most delicate and exquisite sense of misery; so it hath a vast capacity to receive, and let in the fulness of anguish and misery into it: it is a large vessel, called, Rom. 9.22. a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. The large capacity of the Soul is seen in this, that it is not in the power of all the creatures in the World to satisfie and fill it. It can drink up (as one speaks) all the rivers of created good, and its thirst not quenched by such a draught; but after all, it crys, Give, give. Nothing but an infinite God can quiet and satisfie its appetite and raging thirst.
And as it is capable and receptive of more good than is found in all the Creatures; So it is capable of more misery and anguish than all the Creatures can inflict upon it. Let all the elements or men on Earth, yea, all the Devils and damned in Hell conspire and unite in a design to torment man; yet when they have done all, his Spirit is capable of a farther degree of torment, a torment as much beyond it, as a rack is beyond an hard bed, or the Sword in his bowels is beyond the scratch of a pin. The Devils indeed are the executioners and tormentors of the damned; but if that were all they were capable to suffer, the torments of the damned would be comparatively mild and gentle, to what they are. O the largeness of the understanding of man! What will it not take into its vast capacity?