A39675:363
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.
But the Soul of man is a simple, spiritual, immaterial, and unmixed Being, not compounded of matter and form, as other Creatures are, but void of matter, and altogether Spiritual: as may appear in the vast capacity of its understanding faculty, which cannot be straitened by receiving multitudes of Truths into it. It need not empty it self of what it had received before, to make way for more truth; nor doth it find it self clogged or burdened by the greatest multitudes or varieties of Truths, but the more it knows, the more it still desires to know. Its capacity and appetite are found to enlarge themselves according to the increase of knowledge. So that to speak as the matter is, if the Knowledge of all Arts, Sciences, and Mysteries of Nature could be gathered into the mind of one man; yet that mind would thirst, and even burn with desire after more knowledge, and find more room for it than it did when it first sipped and relished the sweetness of truth. Knowledge, as Knowledge, never burdens or cloys the mind; but like fire increases and enlarges, as it finds more matter to work upon. Now, this could never be, if the Soul were a material Being. Take the largest Vessel, and you shall find, that the more you pour into it, the less room is still left for more;1 and when it is full, you cannot pour in one drop more, except you let out what was in it before. But the Soul is no such Vessel, it can retain all it had, and be still receptive of more; so that nothing can fill it and satisfy it, but that which is infinite and perfect.
But the Soul of man is a simple, spiritual, immaterial, and unmixed Being, not compounded of matter and form, as other Creatures are, but void of matter, and altogether Spiritual: as may appear in the vast capacity of its understanding faculty, which cannot be straitned by receiving multitudes of Truths into it. It need not empty it self of what it had received before, to make way for more truth; nor doth it find it self clogg'd or burthened by the greatest multitudes or varieties of Truths, but the more it knows, the more it still desires to know. Its capacity and appetite are found to inlarge themselves according to the increase of knowledge. So that to speak as the matter is, if the Knowledge of all Arts, Sciences, and Mysteries of Nature could be gathered into the mind of one man; yet that mind would thirst, and even burn with desire after more knowledge, and find more room for it than it did when it first sipt and relished the sweetness of truth. Knowledge, as Knowledge, never burthens or cloys the mind; but like fire increases and enlarges, as it finds more matter to work upon. Now, this could never be, if the Soul were a material Being. Take the largest Vessel, and you shall find, that the more you pour into it, the less room is still left for more;