A39675:52
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.
Yet would I not be guilty of an unwarrantable Curiosity, in searching into unrevealed things; how willing soever I am to put up my head by faith into the World above, and to know the things which Jesus Christ hath purchased and prepared for me, and all the rest that are waiting for his appearance and Kingdom. I feel my Curiosity checked and repressed by that Elegant Paronomasia, Rom. 12.3. [Greek or Hebrew], In all things I would be wise unto Sobriety. I groan under the effects of Adam's itching Ambition to know, and would not by repeating his sin increase my own misery: Nor yet would I be scared by his Example into the contrary evil of neglecting the means God hath afforded me, to know all that I can know of his revealed Will.
Yet would I not be guilty of an unwarrantable Curiosity, in searching into unrevealed things; how willing soever I am to put up my head by faith into the World above, and to know the things which Iesus Christ hath purchased and prepared for me, and all the rest that are waiting for his appearance and Kingdom. I feel my Curiosity checked and repressed by that Elegant Paronomasia, Rom. 12.3. 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, In all things I would be wise unto Sobriety. I groan under the effects of Adam's itching Ambition to know, and would not by repeating his sin increase my own misery: Nor yet would I be scared by his Example into the contrary evil of neglecting the means God hath afforded me, to know all that I can know of his revealed Will.
*The helps Philosophy affords in some parts of this Discourse, are too great to be despised, and too small to be admired. I confess I read the Definitions of the Soul given by the Ancient Philosophers, with a Compassionate smile. When Thales calls it a Nature without Repose. Asclepiades, an Exercitation of sense. Hesiod, a thing composed of Earth and Water. Parmenides, a thing composed of Earth and Fire. Galen saith it is heat. Hippocrates, a Spirit diffused throughout the Body. Plato, a Self-moving Substance. Aristotle calls it, Entelechia, that by which the Body is moved. If my Opinion should be asked, which of all these Definitions I like best? I should give the same Answer which Theocritus gave to an ill Poet, repeating many of his Verses, and asking which he liked best, Those (said he) which you have omitted. Or if they must have the