A39675:174
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.
What Animal is there in the world, out of whose Soul the acts of reason spring and flow, as they do out of humane Souls? Are they capable of inventing, or (which is much less) of learning the Arts and Sciences? Can they correct their senses, and demonstrate a Star to be far greater than the whole Earth, which to the eye seems no bigger than the rowel of a Spur? Do they foreknow the Positions and Combinations of the Planets, and the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon many years before they suffer them? And if they cannot perform these acts of reason, as it is sure they cannot, how much less can they know, fear, love, or delight in God, and long for the enjoyment of him! These things do plainly evince humane Souls to be of another species, and therefore of an higher Original than the souls of Brutes. If all have one common nature and Original, why are they not all capable of performing the same rational and Religious Acts?
What Animal is there in the world, out of whose Soul the acts of reason spring and flow, as they do out of humane Souls? Are they capable of inventing, or (which is much less) of learning the Arts and Sciences? Can they correct their senses, and demonstrate a Star to be far greater than the whole Earth, which to the eye seems no bigger than the rowel of a Spurr? Do they foreknow the Positions and Combinations of the Planets, and the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon many years before they suffer them? And if they cannot perform these acts of reason, as it is sure they cannot, how much less can they know, fear, love, or delight in God, and long for the enjoyment of him! These things do plainly evince humane Souls to be of another species, and therefore of an higher Original than the souls of Brutes. If all have one common nature and Original, why are they not all capable of performing the same rational and Religious Acts?
1But though it should be granted that the Soul of the first Man was by immediate Creation and Inspiration from God, yet it follows not, that the souls of all his posterity must be so too. God might create him with a power of begetting other souls after his own Image. The first tree was created with its seed in it self to propagate its kind, and so might the first Man.