A39675:275
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 indeed, this is but a feeble bond, a very slender and weak thread which holds our Souls and Bodies in union. What more volatile, evanid and uncertain, than a puff of breath? The nostrils are the outer door of the body, our breath is continually in our nostrils, and how soon may that depart, which is day and night at the door, as if it were still taking its leave of us. Our breath is always going, and what is still going, will be gone at last. How small a difference is there betwixt Respiration and Expiration? A breathing, and a breathless lump of clay? Breath cannot continue long, and life cannot stay a moment behind it. Psal. 104.29. Thou takest away their breath, they dye; and return to their dust. Life is breath given, and Death is breath taken away. The breath of Man is like a written sentence in which there are diverse Comma's, or short pauses; after which speedily follows a full stop, and there's an end of it.
1Some conceive Solomon points at the continual motion of the Lungs, in that figurative and elegant description of the death of man, Eccles. 12.6. Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden Bowl be broken; or the Pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the Cistern. The double motion of the Lungs, he seems here to compare to the double motion of the buckets in a Well, the turn of the wheel sends one down, and draws the other up. But as we use to say proverbially, the Bucket or Pitcher that goes so often to the Cistern or Well, is broken at last: So must we say of these, they will fail at last. One sitting by the bedside of a dying Person, sighed out this ⟨p. 73⟩compassionate expression, Ah! quid s••u• ? His sick friend hearing it, replied, Pulvis, & […], fumus, dust, a shadow, a puff of wind. The wind without us is fick••, and inconstant to a proverb, and so is that within us too. Many grudge at the shortness of life; but considering the feebleness of this Bond, we have more cause to wonder at the slowness of death. For let us but seriously consider the frailty of our breath on a double account: viz. 1. In respect of our breathing instruments. viz. 2. Or of breaths-stopping accidents.