A39675:514
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.
Upon this ground also it is, that this Life becomes a Life of Temptation to all Men, and there is no freedom from that danger, till we be freed from the Body, and set at liberty by Death. Separated Souls are the only free Souls. They that carry no Flesh about them, need carry no Fears of Temptation within them. 'Tis the Body which catches the sparks of Temptation.
3. The Soul manifests its dear Love and Affection to the Body, by its Sympathy and compassionate feeling of all its Burdens: Whatever touches the Body by way of Injury, affects the Soul also by way of Sympathy. The Soul and Body are as the strings of two Musical Instruments, set exactly at one height, if one be touched, the other trembles. They laugh and cry, are sick and well together. This is a wonderful Mystery, and a rare Secret, (as a Learned Man observes,) how the Soul comes to sympathize with the Body, and to have not only a knowledge, but as it were a feeling of its Necessities and Infirmities; how this Fleshly Lump comes to affect, and make its deep Impressions upon a Creature of so different a Nature from it, as the Soul or Spirit is. But that it doth so, though we know not how, is plain and sensible to any Man. If any Member of the Body, though but the lowest and meanest, be in Pain and Misery, the Soul is presently affected with it, and commands the Eyes to watch, yea to weep, the Hands to bind it up with all tenderness, and defend it from the least injurious touch; the Lips to complain of its Misery, and beg pity and help from others for it. If the Body be in danger, how are the Faculties of the Soul. Understanding, Memory, Invention, &c. employed with utmost ⟨p. 139⟩Strength and Concernment for its deliverance. This is a real and unexceptionable Evidence of its dear and tender Love to the Body. As those that belong to one Mystical Body show their sincere Love this way, 1 Cor. 12.25, 26. Ephes. 4.19. So the Soul.