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 V.

IF we must shortly put off these Tabernacles, Then the groaning and mourning time of Believers is but short. How heavy soever their burden be, yet they shall carry it but a little way. It's said 2 Cor. 5 4. We that are in this Tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Good Souls in this State are every where groaning under heavy pressures. Their burdens are of two sorts, Sympathetical, whereby they grieve with, and on the account of others, and so every true member of the Church of God ought to sympathize, both with God, Psal. 1 39.21. Am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee? Psal. 42.10. it is as with a Sword in their bones; and with the people of God, Zeph 3.18. sorrowful for the solemn Assembly, so 2 Cor. 11.29. Who is offended and I burn not? And indeed, it is an Argument of rich, as well as true grace, that we can, and do heartily mourn with, and for the Interest and People of God, though our own lot in the World, as Nehemiah's, be never so comfortable. Or else our burdens are Idiopa∣thetical (i. e.) such as we bear upon our own proper account and score: And where is the Christian that hath not his own burden, yea, many burthens on him at once? Some groan under the burden of sin, Rom. 7.24. Scarce one day are the tears off some eye-lids on this account. And who groans not under the burden of affliction, either inward upon the Soul, Prov. 18.14. Iob 6.1, 2, 3. or outward upon the Body, State, Relations, &c. These things make the peo∣ple of God a burthen to themselves, Iob 7.20, 21. Yea, under these burthens they would sink, did not the Lord sustain them, Psal. 55.22.

But God will put a speedy and final end to all these things; when you put off this Tabernacle, you put off with it all those burdens, inward, and outward. The Soul presently feels a great load off its shoulders: It shall never groan more, God shall thenceforth wipe away all tears from their eyes: For why are those burdens now permitted and impo∣sed by the Lord upon you, but (1) To prevent sin, Hosea 2.6. They are your clogs, to keep you from straying.

(2) To purge out sin, Isa••. 27.9. (3) To make you long more for Heaven, and the rest to come? But all these ends are accomplished in that day you put off your Tabernacles, for then sin is gone, and rest is come.