A39675:416
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 if our Souls be mortal, and perish with our Bodies, all this is a mistake, and we are imposed upon, and our understandings abused by this Doctrine. For to what purpose are all these Decrees and contrivances of God from everlasting, if our Souls perish with our Bodies? Certainly, if it be so, he loseth all the thoughts and counsels of his heart about us, and that counsel of his will which is so much celebrated in the Scriptures, and admired by his People comes to nought. For this is evident to every mans consideration, that if the Soul (which is the Object, about which all those counsels and thoughts of God were employed and laid out) fail in its being, all those thoughts and counsels that have been employed about it, and spent on it, must necessarily fail, and come to nothing with it. The thoughts of his heart cannot ⟨p. 111⟩stand fast, as its said Psal. 33.11. if the Soul slide, about which they are conversant. In that day the elect Soul perisheth, the eternal consultations and purposes of Gods heart perish with it. Kekerman tells us, that Albertus Magnus with abundance of Art,1 and the study of thirty years made a vocal Statue in the form of a Man. It was a rare contrivance, and much admired. The cunning Artist had so framed it, that by Wheels and other Machines placed within it, it could pronounce words articulately. Aquinas being surprised to hear the Statue speak, was affrighted at it, and brake it all to pieces: Upon which Albertus told him, he had at one blow destroyed the work of thirty years. Such a blow would the death of the Soul give to the counsels and thoughts not of Man, but of God, not of thirty years, but from everlasting.
But if our Souls be mortal, and perish with our Bodies, all this is a mistake, and we are imposed upon, and our understandings abused by this Doctrine. For to what purpose are all these Decrees and contrivances of God from everlasting, if our Souls perish with our Bodies? Certainly, if it be so, he loseth all the thoughts and counsels of his heart about us, and that counsel of his will which is so much celebrated in the Scriptures, and admired by his People comes to nought. For this is evident to every mans consideration, that if the Soul (which is the Object, about which all those counsels and thoughts of God were imployed and laid out) fail in its being, all those thoughts and counsels that have been imployed about it, and spent on it, must necessarily fail, and come to nothing with it. The thoughts of his heart cannot