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 ...

Argument VII.

MOreover, the account given us in Scripture of the re∣turn of several Souls into their own Bodies again after death, and real separation from them, shews us that the Soul subsists and lives in a separate state after death, and perisheth not by the stroke of death: for if it were annihila∣ted or destroyed by death, the same Soul could never be re∣stored again to the same Body. A dead Body may indeed be acted by an assisting form, which may move and carry it from place to place: So the Devil hath acted the dead Bo∣dies of many; but they cannot be said to live again, by their own Souls, after a real separation by death, unless those Souls over-lived the Bodies they forsook at death, and had their abode in another Place and state. You have divers unquestionable examples of the Souls return into the Body recorded in Scripture. As that of the Sh••namites Son, 2 King. 4.18, 19, 20, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37. That of the Rulers daughter, Matth. 9.18, 23, 24, 25. That of the Widows Son, Luke 7.12, 13, 14, 15. and that of Lazarus,

Iohn 11.39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. These were no other but the very same Souls,* 1.1 their own Souls which returned into them again, which as Chrysostom well observes, is a great proof of their Immortality, against them that think the Soul is annihilated after the death of the Body.

'Tis true, the Scripture gives us no account of any sense or apprehension they retained after their re-union, of the place or state they were in, during their separation. There seem∣ed to be perfect 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, forgetfulness of all that they saw or felt in the state of separation. And indeed it was neces∣sary it should be so, that our faith might be built rather up∣on the sure promises of God, than such reports and nar∣ratives of them that came to us from the dead, Luke. 16.31. And if we believe not the word, neither would we believe, if one came from the dead.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Non aliam, sed ipsam priorem anima•• corpori mortuo res••itutam esse, contra tos qui puta••erunt & bodie putant ani∣m••m post mortem corporis nihil esse.