A39675:262
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.
DOCT. II.
1There is (saith a learned Man) no greater mystery in nature, than the union betwixt the Soul and Body: That a mind and spirit should be so tied and linked with a clod of Clay; that while that remains in a due temper, it cannot by any art, or power free it self. It can by an act of the Will move an hand, or a foot, or the whole body; but cannot move from it one inch. If it move hither, or thither, or by a leap upward, do ascend a little, the body still follows; it cannot shake or throw it off. We cannot take our selves out; by any allowable means we cannot, nor by any at all (that are at least within mere humane power) as long as the temperament lasts. While that remains, we cannot go; if that fail, we cannot stay, though there be so many open avenues (could we suppose any material bounds to hem in, or exclude a spirit) we cannot go out, or in at pleasure. A wonderful thing! And I wonder, we no more wonder at our own make and frame in this respect —What so much akin are a mind and a piece of earth, a clod and a thought, that they should be thus affixed to one another?