A39675:861
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.
§. 6.
Add hereto, that these habits of grace are inseparably rooted or lodged in a subject which is by nature a Spirit, that is to say,1 an intelligent active Being, able to use its faculties of Understanding, Will, and Affections, and consequently in their use to reduce these habits of Grace inherent in them into act; without the help of the Body: For to suppose otherwise, were to dispirit it, and destroy the very nature of it.
- 1The Understanding and Will are the primary Faculties of the Soul, and are therefore called Inorganical; because not affixed to any Member of the Body as the sensitive Appetite and locomotive Powers are to their proper Organs. The Soul therefore hath the free use and exercise of them in its separate state.
Moreover, let this Spirit thus furnished with gracious habits, be now considered in separation from the Body, in which state it enjoyeth and rejoiceth in a double Privilege it never had before, viz. Perfection both of it self, and of its Graces, and the nearest access to God it is capable of, 2 Cor. 5.6. Absent from the Body, and present with the Lord. It hath now no body to clog or cloud it, nor can it complain of distance from God, as it did in this World. O at what rate must we conceive the love and delight of a Soul under these great advantages to cast out their very Spirits, as I may say, in their glorious Activities