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 ...

Consideration IV.

All that divine pleasure which ever the holiest and de∣voutest Soul enjoyed in the Body, is but a Sip, or Praelibation, ••ompared with those full draughts it hath in the unbodied State.

Whilst it is embodied, it rejoyceth in the Earnests and Pledges of joy, but when it is unbodied, it receives the full summ, Psal. 16.11. In thy presence is the fulness of joy. This ful∣ness of joy is not to be expected, because not to be support∣ed in this World. The joy of Heaven would quickly make the hoops of Nature flie. When a good man had but a little more than ordinary of the joy of the Lord poured into his Soul, he was heard to cry, Hold, Lord, hold, thy poor Creature is but a clay Vessel, and can hold no more. These Pleasures the Soul hath in the Body, are of the same kind indeed with those in Heaven, but are exceeding short of them in divers other respects.

1. The Spiritual Pleasures the Soul hath in the Body, are but by reflection; but those it enjoys out of the Body, are by immediate intuition, 1 Cor. 13.12. now in a glass, then face to face.

2. The Pleasures it hath now, though they be of a Di∣vine nature, yet they are relished by the vitiated Appetite of a sick, and distempered Soul; the embodied Soul is dis∣eased and sickly, it hath many Distempers hanging about it. Now we know the most pleasant things lose much of their pleasure to a sick man; the separate Soul is made per∣fect, throughly cured of all Diseases, restored to its perfect health; and consequently Divine Pleasures must needs have

an higher gust and relish in Heaven than ever they had on earth.

3. The Pleasures of a Gracious Soul on earth, are but rare and seldom, meeting with many and long inter∣ruptions; and many of them occasioned by the Body, which often calls down the Soul to attend its Necessities; and converse with things of a far different nature: But from these, and all other ungrateful and prejudicial Avo∣cations, the separated Soul is discharged and set free. So that its whole Eternity is spent in the highest De∣lights.

4. The highest Pleasures of a Gracious Soul in the Body, are but the Pleasures of an uncentred Soul, which is still gravitating and striving forward, and consequently can be but low and very imperfect, in comparison with those it enjoys, when it is centred and fixed in its everlasting Rest. They differ as the shadow of the Labourer, for an hour in the day, from his Rest in his Bed when his Work is ended.

5. To conclude, The Pleasures it hath here, are but the Pleasures of Hope and Expectation, which cannot bear any proportion to those of sight and full fruition. O see the advantages of an unbodied state.