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 XII.

HOw doleful a change doth the death of wicked men make upon them! from Palaces on Earth, to the Prison of Hell.

No sooner is the Soul of a wicked man stept out of his own door at death, but the Serjeants of Hell are immediatly upon it, serving the dreadful summons on the Law-condemned wretch. This arrest terrifies it more than the hand-writing upon the plai∣ster of the Wall did him, Dan. 5.5. How are all a mans apprehen∣sions changed in a moment! Out of what a deep sleep are most, and out of what a pleasant dream of Heaven are some awaked and startled at death, by the dreadful arrest and summons of God to condemnation!

How quickly would all a sinners mirth be dampt and turned into houlings in this World, if Conscience were but throughly awakened! It is but for God to change our apprehensions now, and it would be done in a moment: but the eyes of most mens Souls are not opened, till death hath shut their bodily eyes; and then how suddain, and how sad a change is made in one day!

O think what it is to pass from all the pleasures and delights of this World into the torments and miseries of that World: from a pleasant Habitation, into an infernal Prison: from the depth of security to the extremity of desperation: from the arms and bosoms of dearest Friends and Relations, to the Society of dam∣ned Spirits! Lord, what a change is here! Had a gracious change been made upon their hearts by grace, no such doleful change could have been made upon their state by death: Little do their surviving Friends think what they feel, or what is their estate in the other World, whilst they are honouring their Bodies with splendid and pompous Funerals. None on earth have so much

reason to fear death, to make much of life, and use all means to continue it, as those who will and must be so great losers by the exchange.