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 ...

PROP. I. That the guilt of all sin gathers to and settles in the Conscience of every Christless sinner, and makes up a vast treasure of guilt in the course of his life in this World.

THE high and awful power of Conscience belonging to the understanding faculty in the Soul of Man, was spoken to before, as to its general nature, Page 21. And that conscience certainly accompanies it, and is inseparable from it, was there shewed. I am here to consider it as the seat or centre of guilt in all unregenerate and lost Souls. For look as the tides wash up, and leave the slime and filth upon the shore, even so all the corruption and sin that is in the other faculties of the Soul settles, upon the conscience. Their mind and conscience (saith the Apostle) is defiled. Tit. 1.15. it is as it were the sink of a sinners Soul into which all filth runs, and guilt settles.

The conscience of every Believer is purged from its filthiness by the blood of Christ, Heb. 9.14. his blood and his Spirit purifie it and pacifie it, whereby it becomes the region of light and peace, but all the guilt which hath been long contracting through the life of an unbeliever, fixes it self deep and fast in his con∣science. It is written upon the Tables of their hearts as with a pen of Iron, Jer. 17.1. (i. e.) guilt is as a mark or character fashioned or ingraven in the very substance of the Soul, as letters are cut into glass with a Diamond.

Conscience is not only the principal engagée obliged unto God as a Judge, but the principal director and guide of the Soul in its courses and actions, and consequently the guilt of all sin falls up∣on it and rests in it. The Soul is both the spring and fountain of all actions that go outward from man, and the term or recepta∣cle of all actions inward: but in both sorts of actions, going outward and coming inward, conscience is the chief Counsellor, Guide and director in all, and so the guilt which is contracted ei∣ther way, must be upon its head? 'Tis the bridle of the Soul to restrain it from sin, the eye of the Soul to direct its course; and therefore is principally chargeable with all the evils of life. Bodily members are but instruments, and the will it self, as high and noble a faculty or power as it is, moveth not, until the judg∣ment cometh to a conclusion, and the debate be ended in the mind.

Now in the whole course and compass of a sinners life in this World, what treasures of guilt must needs be lodged in his con∣science?

What a Magazine of sin and filth must be laid up there! 'Tis said of a wicked man, Job 20.11. His bones are full of the sins of his youth: meaning his Spirit, Mind or Conscience is as full of sin as bones are of Marrow; yea, the very sins of his Youth are enough to fill them: and Rom. 2.5. they are said to trea∣sure up wrath against the day of wrath, which is only done by trea∣suring up guilt; for wrath and guilt are treasured up together, in proportion to each other. Every day of his life vast summs have been cast into this treasury, and the patience of God waiteth till it be full, before he call the sinner to an account and reckon∣ing, Gen. 15.16.