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 ...

REASON I.

The sufficient ordinary provision God hath made in this case, renders all such extraordinary notices and intimations of our Death needless: And be sure the most wise God doth nothing in vain. We have three standing, ordinary, and suf∣ficient means to premonish us of our departure hence, viz. the Scriptures, Reason, and daily Examples of Mortality before our eyes. The Scriptures tell us our life is but a vapour, which appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away, James 4.14. That our days are but to an hand breadth, and that every man in his best estate is vanity, Psal. 39.5.

Reason tells us, so feeble a tye as our breath is, can never secure our lives long. The living know that they must dye,

Eccles. 9.5. The radical moisture which is daily consuming by the flame of life, must needs be spent ere long.

And all the Graves we see opened so frequently are suffi∣cient warnings, that we our selves must shortly follow. Therefore as there was no need of Manna, when bread might be had in an ordinary way; so neither is there need of extraordinary signs, when God hath abundantly furnished us with standing and ordinary means for this purpose.