A39675:165
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.
(3.) A Third sort there are who deny not that Souls are created Substances,1 and proceeded from God; but affirm withal, that he created them simul, & semel, together and at once, as the Angels were, and that not one by one, as men are born into the world. Of this opinion was Plato who thought all *humane souls to be created together before their bodies, and placed in some glorious and suitable Mansions, as the Stars, till at last growing weary of Heavenly, and falling in love with Earthly things, for a punishment of that Crime, they were cast into Bodies, as into so many Prisons. Origen sucked in this Notion of the preexistence of Souls. And upon this supposition it was that Porphyry tells us in the life of Plotinus, that he blushed as often as he thought of his being in a Body, as a man that had lived in reputation and honour, blushes when he is lodged in a Prison. The ground on which the Stoics bottomed their Opinion was the great dignity and excellency of the Soul, which inclined them to think they had never been degraded and abased as they are by dwelling in such vile bodies, but for their faults. And that it was for some former sin of theirs, that they slid down into gross matter, and were caught into a vital union with it. Whereas, had they not sinned, they had lived in celestial and splendid habitations more suitable to their dignity.
(3.) A Third sort there are who deny not that Souls are created Substances,1 and proceeded from God; but affirm withal, that he created them simul, & semel, together and at once, as the Angels were, and that not one by one, as men are born into the world. Of this opinion was Plato who thought all *humane souls to be created together before their bodies, and placed in some glorious and suitable Mansions, as the Stars, till at last growing weary of Heavenly, and falling in love with Earthly things, for a punishment of that Crime, they were cast into Bodies, as into so many Prisons. Origen suckt in this Notion of the praeexistence of Souls. And upon this supposition it was that Porphyry tells us in the life of Plotinus, that he blushed as often as he thought of his being in a Body, as a man that had lived in reputation and honour, blushes when he is lodged in a Prison. The ground on which the Stoicks bottomed their Opinion was the great dignity and excellency of the Soul, which inclined them to think they had never been degraded and abased as they are by dwelling in such vile bodies, but for their faults. And that it was for some former sin of theirs, that they slid down into gross matter, and were caught into a vital union with it. Whereas, had they not sinned, they had lived in celestial and splendid habitations more suitable to their dignity.