A39675:744
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.
(3) But though the Soul leave all the means of grace behind it, yet it carries away with it to Heaven all those habits of grace which were planted and improved in it in this World, by the blessing of the Spirit upon those means: though it leave the Ordinances, it loseth not the effects and fruits of them; though they cease, their effects still live. The truth dwelleth in us, and shall be in us for ever, 1 John 2.17. The Seed of God remaineth in us, 1 John 3.9.
Common gifts fall at death, but saving grace sticks fast in the Soul, and ascends with it into glory. Gracious habits are inseparable; Glory doth not destroy but perfect them. They are the Souls meetness for Heaven, Col. 1.12, and ⟨p. 210⟩therefore it shall not come into his presence, leaving its meetness behind it. In vain is all the work of the Spirit upon us in this World, if we carry it not along with us into that World, seeing all his works upon us in this life, have a respect and relation to the life to come.
Look therefore as the same natural Faculties and Powers which the Soul had, (though it could not use them) in its imperfect Body in the Womb, came with it into this World where they freely exerted themselves in the most noble actions of natural life; so the habits of Grace which by Regeneration are here implanted in a weak and imperfect Soul, go with it to glory, where they exert themselves in a more high and perfect way of acting, than ever they did here below. The languishing spark of love, is there a vehement flame; the saint, remiss, and infrequent delight in God, is there at a constant ravishing and transporting height.