A39675:1294
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 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?
But add to this, That damned Souls have all those affections laid in a deep and everlasting sleep, the exercises whereof would be relieving by emptying their Souls of any part of their misery: and all those passions throughly and everlastingly awakened which increase their torments.
The affections of joy, delight and hope are all benumbed in them, and laid fast asleep, never to be awakened into act any more. Their hope in Scripture is said to perish: (i. e.) it so perisheth, that after death it shall never exert another act to all eternity. The activity of any of these affections would be like a cooling gale, or refreshing Spring amidst their torments; but as Adrian lamented himself, nunquam jocos dabis, thou shalt never be merry more.
The affections of joy, delight and hope are all benummed in them, and laid fast asleep, never to be awakened into act any more. Their hope in Scripture is said to perish: (i. e.) it so perisheth, that after death it shall never exert another act to all eternity. The activity of any of these affections would be like a cooling gale, or refreshing Spring amidst their torments; but as Adrian lamented himself, nunquam jocos dabis, thou shalt never be merry more.