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 XIII.

SEe here the certainty and inevitableness of the judgment of the great day.

This Prison which is continually filling with the Spirits of wicked men, is an undeniable evidence of it: for why is Hell called a Prison, and why are the Spirits of men confined and chained there; but with respect to the judgment of the great day? As there is a necessary connection betwixt sin and punish∣ment, so betwixt punishing and trying the Offender: there are millions of Souls in custody, a world of Spirits in Prison, these must be brought forth to their Tryal, for God will lay upon no man more than is right: the legality of their Mittimus to Hell, will be evidenced in their solemn day of Tryal. God hath there∣fore appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained, Acts 17.31.

Here sinners run in Arrears, and contract vast debts; in Hell they are seiz'd and committed, at Judgment tryed and cast for the same. This will be a dreadful day, those that have spent so prodigally upon the patience of God, must now come to a se∣vere account for all: they have past their particular judgment im∣mediately after death, Eccles. 12.7. Hebr. 9.27. by this they know how they shall speed in the general judgment, and how it shall be with them for ever; but though this private Judgment secures their Damnation sufficiently, yet it clears not the Justice of God before Angels and Men sufficiently; and therefore they must appear once more before his Bar, 2 Cor. 5.10. In the fear∣ful expectation of this day, those trembling Spirits now lie in Prison, and that fearful expectation is a principal part of their present misery and torment. You that refuse to come to the Throne of Grace, see if you can refuse to make your appearance at the Bar of Justice. You that brav'd and brow-beat your Mi∣nisters that warn'd you of it, see if you can out-brave your Judge too as you did them. Nothing more sure, or awful than such a day as this.