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. IV. The wrath, indignation, and revenge of God poured out as the just reward of sin upon the so capacious Souls of the damned, is the principal part of their misery in Hell.

IN the third Proposition I shew'd you that the Souls of the damned can hold more misery than all the creatures can in∣flict

upon them. When the Soul suffers from the hand of man, its sufferings are but either by way of sympathy with the Body; or if immediately, yet it is but a light stroke the hand of a crea∣ture can give: But when it hath to do with a sin revenging God, and that immediately, this stroke cuts off the spirit of man, as the expression is Psal. 88.16. The Body is the cloathing of the Soul Most of the arrows shot at the Soul in this World do but stick in the cloaths, (i. e.) reach the outward man: but in Hell, the Spirit of man is the white at which God himself shoots. All his envenomed arrows strike the Soul, which is after death laid bare and naked to be wounded by his hand. At death, the Soul of every wicked man immediately falls into the hands of the li∣ving God, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, as the Apostle speaks, Heb. 10.31. Their punishment is from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, 2 Thes. 1.9. They are not put over to their fellow creatures to be puni∣shed, but God will do it himself, and glorifie his power as well as justice in their punishment. The wrath of God lies immediate∣ly upon their Spirits, and this is the fiery indignation which devour∣eth the adversaries, Heb. 10.27. A fire that licks up the very Spi∣rit of man, who knoweth the power of his anger? Psal. 90.11. How insupportable it is you may a little guess by that expression of the Prophet Nahum, 1.5, 6. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence, yea, the World and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

And as if anger and wrath were not words of a sufficient edge and sharpness, its called fiery indignation, and vengeance: words de∣noting the most intense degree of divine wrath. For indeed his power is to be glorified in the destruction of his enemies, and therefore now he will do it to purpose. He takes them now in∣to his own hands. No creature can come at the Soul immediately, that is Gods prerogative, and now he hath to do with it himself in fury and revenges poured out. Can thy hands be strong, or thy heart endure when I shall deal with thee? Ezek. 22.14. A∣las, the spirit quails and dies under it. This is the Hell of Hells.

What doleful cries and laments have we heard from Gods dearest children, when but some few drops of his anger have been sprinkled upon their Souls here in this world! But alas there is no compare betwixt the anger, or fatherly discipline of God over the Spirits of his children, and indignation poured out from the beginning of revenges upon his enemies.