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 ...

Inference VII.

IF breath be the tye betwixt Soul and Body, How are we concerned to improve, and draw forth, the precious breath of Ministers and Christians, whilst it is yet in their No∣strills.

The breath of many Ministers is judicially stopt already, their breath serves to little other use than to preserve their own lives; it will be stopt ere long by death, and then those excellent treasures of Gifts and Graces, wherewith they are richly furnished, will be gone out of your reach, ne∣ver to be further useful to your Souls. You should do

by them therefore (as one aptly speaks) as Scholars do by some choice Book they have borrowed, and must return in a few days to its Owner: They diligently read it Night and Day, and carefully transcribe the most useful and ex∣cellent Notes they can find in it, that they may make them their own, when the Book is called for out of their hands.

But alas, we rather divert, than draw forth these Ex∣cellencies that are in them. You may yet converse with them, and greatly benefit your selves by these Conver∣ses; but (as one speaks) by the stream of your impertinent talk, that season is neglected: afterwards you see your lack of knowledge, but then the instrument is removed. How must it gall an awakened Iew, to think what Dis∣course he had with Jesus Christ? Is it lawful to give Tribute to Caesar? Why do not thy Disciples fast? O had I nothing else to enquire of the Lord Jesus? Would it not have been more pertinent to have asked, What shall I do to be saved? But he is gone, and I dead in my sins. How many persons have we sent away, that had a word of Wisdom in their hearts? Having only learnt from them what a Clock it is, what Weather, or what News: Forgetting to ask our own hearts, What is all this to us? And to enquite of them things worthy of their Wisdom and Experience. Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a Fool, seeing he hath no heart to it? Proverbs 17.16. The expence of one Minutes breath in season, may if God concur with it, be to you the ground of breathing forth praises to God to all eternity.