A39675:21
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.
1It is but little that the most clear and sharp-sighted do discern of their own Souls now in the state of composition, and what then can we positively and distinctly know of the life they live in the state of Separation? The darkness in which these things are involved, doth greatly exercise, even the greatest Wits; and frequently elude and frustrate the most generous attempts. Many great Scholars, ⟨image 4⟩whose natural and acquired abilities singularly furnished and qualified them to make a clearer discovery, have laboured in this field usque ad sudorem, & pallorem, even to sweat and paleness, and done little more but entangle themselves and the Subject more than before. This cannot but discourage new attempts.
1It is but little that the most clear and sharp-sighted do discern of their own Souls now in the state of composition, and what then can we positively and distinctly know of the life they live in the state of Separation? The darkness in which these things are involved, doth greatly exercise, even the greatest Witts; and frequently elude and frustrate the most generous attempts. Many great Scholars, ⟨image 4⟩whose natural and acquired abilities singularly furnished and qualified them to make a clearer discovery, have laboured in this field usque ad sudorem, & pallorem, even to sweat and paleness, and done little more but intangle themselves and the Subject more than before. This cannot but discourage new attempts.
- 1Animam praesentem mentis acie vix, aut ne vix quidem, assequimur, sed qualis sit futura, quomodo indagabimus? Laboranthic maxima ingenia, & caligo conatus etiam generosos non rarò eludit. Jos. Stern. de Morte, cap. 20.
And yet without some knowledge of the ability and subjective capacity of our Souls, to enjoy the good of the World to come, even in a state of absence from the Body, a principal relief must be cut off from them under the great and manifold trials they are to encounter in this evil World.