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 IX.

IS it but a puff of breath that holds Man in life, then build not too much hope and confidence upon any man.

Build not too high upon so feeble a foundation. Cease ye from man (saith the Prophet) whose breath is in his Nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of? Isai. 2.22. There are two things that should deter us from dependance upon any man, viz. his falseness, and his frailty. Grace in a great mea∣sure, may cure the first, but not the last. The best of men must die, as well as the worst, Rom. 8.10. 'tis a vanity therefore to rely upon any man. It was the saying of a Philosopher, when he heard how Merchants lost great Estates at Sea in a moment, Non amo foelicitatem è funibus pendentem; I love not that Happiness (said he) which hangs upon a Rope. But all the happiness of many men, hangs upon a far weaker thing than a Rope, even the perishing breath of a Creature.

Let not Parents raise their hopes too high, or lean too hard upon their Children, say not of thy Child as Lamech did of Noah, this Son shall comfort us, Gen. 5.29. The World is full of the Laments and bitter Cries of disappoint∣ed Parents. Let not the Wife depend too much on her Husband, as if her earthly Comforts were secured in him, against all danger. God is often provoked to stop our friends breath, that thereby he may stop our way to sin. 1 Tim. 5.5. The trust and dependance of a Soul is too weighty to be hang'd upon such a weak and rotten pin as a Creatures breath is.