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 ...

Solution.

Death is considerable two ways by the people of God,

• 1. As an Enemy to Nature,
• 2. As a medium to Glory.

If we consider it simply in it self, as an Enemy to Nature, there is nothing in it for which we should desire it: but if we consider it as a medium or passage into glory, yea, the only ordinary way through which all the Saints must pass out of this into a better state, so it will appear not only tolerable, but desirable to prepared Souls. Were there not a shore of glory on the other side of these black Waters of death, for my own part, I should rather chuse to live meanly, than to die easily. If both parts were to perish

at death, there were no reason to perswade one to be wil∣ling to deliver up the other. It were a madness for the Soul to desire to be dissolv'd, if it were so far from being better out of the Body, than in it, that it should have no being at all. But Christians, let me tell you, death is so far from be∣ing a Bar, that it is a Bridge in your way to glory, and you are never like to come thither but by passing over it: except therefore you will look beyond it, you will never see any desireableness in it. I desire to be dissolv'd (saith Paul) and to be with Christ; which is far better. To be with Death is sad, but to be with Christ is sweet: to endure the pains of death is doleful; but to see the face of Christ is joyful. To part with your pleasant habitations is irkesome; but to be lodged in the heavenly Mansions is most delightful. A part∣ing hour with dear Relations is cutting, but a meeting hour with Jesus Christ is transporting. To be rid of your own Bodies is not pleasing: but to be rid of sin and that for ever; What can be more pleasing to a gracious Soul?

You see then in what sense I present death as a desirable thing to the people of God. And therefore seeing nature teacheth us (as the Apostle speaks) to put the more abun∣dant comeliness upon the uncomely parts; suffer me to dress up death in its best ornaments, and present it to you in the following Arguments, as a beautiful and comely object of your conditional and well regulated desires. And