A39675:185
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.
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.
But because I suspect the Description I have given of it will be obscure and cloudy to vulgar Readers of a plain and low capacity, by reason of divers Philosophical terms which I have been forced to make use of; and reckoning ⟨p. 43⟩my self a debtor to the weak and unlearned, as well as others, I will endeavour to strip this Description of the Soul, for their sakes, out of those artificial terms which darken it to them, and present it once more in the most plain and intelligible Epitome I am capable to give it in; that so the weaker understanding may be able to form a true notion of the Nature and Original of the Soul in this manner.
This Soul of mine is a true and real Being:1 Not a fancy, a conceit, a very nothing. It hath a proper and true Being in it self, whether I conceit it or not. Nor indeed can I conceive of it, but by it. It is not such a thing as whiteness is in Snow, a mere accident, which depends upon the Snow in which it is, for the Being it hath, and must perish as soon as the Snow is dissolved: my Soul doth not so depend upon my Body, or any other fellow creature for its Being; but is as truly a Substance as my Body is, though not of so gross and material a kind and nature. My Soul can and will subsist, and remain what it is, when my Body is separated from it; but my Body cannot subsist and remain what it now is, when my Soul is separated from it. So that I find my Soul to be the most substantial and noble part of me, it is not my Body, but my Soul which makes me a man. And if this depart, all the rest of me is but a dead log, a lump of inanimate Clay, a heap of vile dust and corruption. From this independent subsistence it hath in it self, and the dependence its properties and affections have upon it, I truly apprehend and call it a Substance.