A39675:1617
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.
The tenth way leading to Destruction marked.
X. Deep and fixed prejudices against Godliness and the sincere Professors thereof, precipitate thousands of Souls into their own ruin and damnation.
X. Deep and fixed prejudices against Godliness and the sincere Professors thereof, precipitate thousands of Souls into their own ruine and damnation.
It was not without a weighty reason that Christ denounced that woe upon the world, Matt. 18.7. Woe unto the world, because of offences. The poor world will be ruined by scandals and prejudices; they will take such offences at the ways of Godliness, that they will never have good thoughts of them any more. This Sect is every where spoken against, Acts 28.21. and so Christians are condemned [Greek or Hebrew], because of the common reproach, as Justin Martyr complained. All the scandals which fall out in the Church are so many Swords and Daggers put into the hands of the wicked world to murder their own Souls withal. Some have sucked in such Opinions of the ways of Godliness, as make them irreconcilable Enemies to them, and fierce Opposers of them. And from hence are most of the Persecutions that befall the People of God. When you see showers of slanders and reproaches going before, expect storms of persecution coming after. Slanders beget prejudices, and these prepare for persecutions. O how keen and fierce are the minds of many against the upright and innocent Servants of God, whom they have first represented to themselves in such an odious dress and Character as the Devil hath drawn them in upon their fancies and imaginations! So the primitive Christians were represented to the Heathens as Monsters, and their Conventions in the night, occasioned by the fury of Persecutors, was reported to be for lascivious and barbarous ends, to deflower Virgins, and murder innocent Children: and by this artifice the Heathens were secured against conversion to Christ. This