A39675:572
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.
The Souls of some mourners do willingly excite and provoke their own griefs, when they begin to abate, which is like the whetting of the knife that grows dull, to make it cut the deeper into the Body.1 Thus, as Seneca observes, Some Parents that have lost their beloved children, willingly call to mind their pleasant sayings, and pretty actions, to find a kind of pleasure in a fresh shower of tears for them; when, poor hearts! sorrow hath so broken them already, that they need consolations under their present sorrows, rather than irritations of new ones. And the Souls unmercifulness to the Body, is in such cases farther discovered by its obstinate refusal of all that is comforting and relieving: So it is said of Rachel, Jerem. 31.15. Rachel weeping for her children, would not be comforted, because they were not. So the Israelites hearkened not unto Moses, because of the anguish of spirit, and the cruel bondage, Exod. 6.9. Thus we studiously rake together, and exasperate whatsoever is piercing, wounding, and over-whelming; and shut our ears to all that is relieving and supporting, which is cruelty to our own Bodies, and that which hath so far broken the health and strength of some bodies, that they are never like to be useful instruments to the Soul any more in this World. Such deep and desperate wounds have their own Souls given them by immoderate grief, as will never be perfectly healed, but by the Resurrection. Of those wounds the body may say as it is Zeth. 13.6. These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house (or ⟨p. 156⟩by the hand) of my friend: thus my own Soul hath dealt cruelly and unmercifully with me.
- 1Cum occurrant Sermones corum jucundi, conversatio hilaris, officiosa pietas; tunc ocali velut in gaudio relaxantur. Sen. Ep. 806.