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 XI.

WHen you find your hearts reluctate at the thoughts of lea∣ving the Body, and the comforts of this World, then consider how willingly and chearfully Iesus Christ left Heaven, and the Bosome of his Father, to come down to this World for your sakes, Pr. 8.30, 31. Ps. 40.7. Loe, I come, &c.

O compare the frames of your hearts with his in this point, and shame your selves out of so unbecoming a temper of Spirit.

• (1) He left Heaven and all the Delights and Glory of it, to come down to this World, to be abased and humbled to the lowest; you leave this World of sin and misery to a∣scend to Heaven to be exalted to the highest. He came hither to be impoverished, you go thither to be enriched, 2 Cor. 8.9. yet he came willingly, and we go grudgingly.
• (2) He came from Heaven to Earth, to be made sin for us, 2 Cor. 5.21. we go from Earth to Heaven, to be fully and everlastingly delivered from sin; yet he came more willingly to bear our sins, than we go to be delivered from them.
• (3) He came to take a body of Flesh, to suffer and die in, Heb. 2.24. you leave your Bodies that you may never suffer in, or by them any more.
• (4) As his Incarnation was a deep abasement, so his death was the most bitter death, that ever was tasted by any from the beginning, or ever shall to the end of the World; and yet how obediently doth he submit to both at the Father's Call, Luke 12.50. I have a Baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished. Ah Christians, your death cannot have the ten thousandth part of that bit∣terness in it, that Christ's had. I remember one of the Martyrs being asked, why his heart was so light at death; returned this answer, because Christs heart was so heavy at his death. O there is a vast difference betwixt one and the other: the Wrath of God, and Curse of the Law, was in his death, Gal. 3.13. but there is neither Wrath nor Curse in your death, who die in the Lord, Rom. 8.1.

God forsook him when he hanged upon the Tree in the Agonies of death, Matth. 27.46. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But you shall not be forsaken. He will make all your Bed in sickness, Psal. 41.3. He will never leave you, nor forsake you, Heb. 13.5.

Yet he regretted not, but went as a Sheep or Lamb, Isa. 53.7. O reason your selves out of this Reluctancy at death, by this great Example and Pattern of Obedience.