A39675:676
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.
And it deserves a serious animadversion, that this perfect State doth not succeed the imperfect one, after a long interval (as long as betwixt the dissolution, and Resurrection of the Body) but the imperfect state of the Soul, is immediately done away by the coming of the perfect one. The glass is laid by as useless, when we come to see face to face, and eye to eye.
The Waters will prove very deep here, too deep for any line of mine to fathom, there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come, a gloom and haziness upon that state; fain we would with our weak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge penetrate this cloud, and dispel this gloom and haziness, but cannot: we think seriously and close to this great and awful subject, but our thoughts cannot pierce through it; we re-enforce those thoughts by a sally or thick succession of fresh thoughts, and yet all will not do, our thoughts return to us either in confusion, or without the expected success. For alas, how little is it that we know or can know of our own Souls now, whilst they are embodied! much less of their unbodied state. The Apostle tells us, 1 Cor, 2.9. That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither ⟨p. 190⟩[…] ⟨p. 191⟩[…] ⟨p. 192⟩have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. And another Apostle adds, it doth not yet appear what we shall be, 1 John 3.1.
The Waters will prove very deep here, too deep for any line of mine to fathom, there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come, a gloom and haziness upon that state; fain we would with our weak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge penetrate this cloud, and dispel this gloom and haziness, but cannot: we think seriously and close to this great and awful subject, but our thoughts cannot pierce through it; we re-inforce those thoughts by a salley or thick succession of fresh thoughts, and yet all will not do, our thoughts return to us either in confusion, or without the expected success. For alas, how little is it that we know or can know of our own Souls now, whilst they are embodied! much less of their unbodied state. The Apostle tells us, 1 Cor, 2.9. That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither