A39675:1629
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.
Secondly, Examine whether the matters that are charged upon them as their Crimes, be not their Duties. Sometimes it falls out to be so, and if so, you fight more immediately and directly against God than men. This was Davids case, Psal. 69.10. When I wept, and chastened my soul, that was to my reproach: my piety was turned to reproach. They called his tears Crocodiles tears, and his fastings hypocritical shadows of devotion and humility. Thus the very matter of his duty was turned into reproach. And so it was with the primitive Christians, their very owning of themselves to be Christians, was crime enough to condemn them.
Thirdly, If Professors of Religion do in some things act unbecoming their holy Profession, yet every slip and failing in their lives is no sufficient Warrant for you to censure their persons as hypocrites, much less to fall upon Religion ⟨p. 435⟩it self, and condemn it for the faults of them that profess it. There's many an upright heart overtaken by temptation. You see their miscarriages, but you see not their humiliations and self-condemnations before God for them. Foo• and fearful (saith a grave Divine) was the scandal of David, 1and what was the issue? Presently the Enemies of God and Godliness began to lift their heads, and fall foul upon Davids Religion, 2 Sam. 12. they blasphemed the Name of God. O this is he that was so grand a Zealot, that the zeal of Gods house did eat him up. This is the man that, out of his transcendent zeal, danced before the Ark. This is he that prayed thrice a day, at morning, noon, and night. This is he that was so precise and strict in his family, that a wicked person should not dwell in his house. This your great precise Zealot hath defiled the Wife, and murdered the Husband. Now you see what his Religion is, now you see what comes of this profession of so much Holiness and Godliness.