A39675:347
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.
These Souls (even of all that dyed for Christ, from Abel, to that time) John saw, that is, in Spirit; for these immaterial substances are not perceptible by the gross external senses.1 He had the privilege and favour of a Spiritual representation of them, being therein extraordinarily assisted, as Paul was when his Soul was rapt into the third Heaven, and heard things unutterable, 2 Cor. 12.2. God gave him a transient visible representation of those holy Souls, and that under the Altar, he means not any material Altar, as that at Jerusalem was; but as the holy place figured Heaven, so the Altar figured Jesus Christ, Heb. 13.10. And most aptly Christ is represented to John in this figure, and Souls of the Martyrs at the foot or basis of this Altar, thereby to inform us (1) that however men look upon the death of those persons, and though they kill their names by slanders, as well as their persons by the Sword; yet in Gods account, they dye as Sacrifices, and their blood is no other than a drink-offering poured out to God, which he highly prizeth, and graciously accepteth. Suitable whereunto Pauls expression is, Philip. 2.17. (2) That the value and acceptation their death and blood shed hath with God, is through Christ, and upon his account; for it is the Altar which sanctifieth the gift. Matth. 23.19. and (3.) it informs us that these holy Souls, now in a state of Separation from their Bodies, were very near to Jesus Christ in Heaven. They lay as it were at his foot.
These Souls (even of all that dyed for Christ, from Abel, to that time) Iohn saw, that is, in Spirit; for these immaterial substances are not perceptible by the gross external senses.1 He had the priviledge and favour of a Spiritual representation of them, being therein extraordinarily assisted, as Paul was when his Soul was rapt into the third Heaven, and heard things unutterable,