A39675:183
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.
This Privation and inordinate inclination make up that original corruption, the rise whereof we are searching for: and to bring us as near it as we can come, without a daring intrusion into unrevealed Secrets; our solid Divines proceed by these steps in answering this Objection.
(1.) If it be demanded, how it comes to pass that an Infant becomes guilty if Adam's sin? The answer is, because he is a child of Adam by natural generation. (2.) But why is he deprived of that Original rectitude in which Adam was created? They answer, because Adam lost it by his sin, and therefore could not transmit what he had lost, to his posterity. (3.) But how comes he to be inclined to that which is evil? Their answer is, because he wants that original rectitude: For whosoever wants original rectitude, naturally inclines to that which is evil. And so the propension of Nature to that which is evil, seems to be by way of Concomitancy, with the defect or want of original righteousness.
And thus I have given some account of the Nature and Original of the Soul of Man, though alas! My dim eyes see but little of its excellency and glory. Yet by what hath been said, it appears the Masterpiece of all God's works of Creation in this lower World.