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 VIII.

IF the Soul be so invaluably precious, then it is a rational and well advised resolution and practice to expose all other things to hazard, yea to certain less for the preservation of the more pre∣cious Soul.

'Tis better our bodies and all their comforts should pe∣rish, than that our Souls should perish for their sakes. Na∣ture it self teacheth us to offer an hand or arm to the stroke of a Sword, to save a blow from the head, or put by a thrust at the heart. It is recorded to the praise of those three Worthies, Dan. 3.28. That they yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any God, except their own God. By this rule all the Martyrs of Christ governed themselves, still slighting and exposing to destruction their bodies and Estates to preserve their Souls, reckoning to save nothing by Religion but their Souls, and that they had lost nothing, if they could save them: They loved not their lives unto the death, Rev. 12.11.

Then do we live like Christians, when the cares of our bodies are swallowed up and subdued by the cares of our Souls, and all Creature-loves by the love of Christ: those blessed Souls hated their own bodies, and counted them their enemies, when they would draw them from Christ and his Truths, and plunge their Souls into guilt and danger. This was the result of all their debates with the flesh in the hour of temptation, Cannot we live but to the dishonour of Christ, and ruine of our own Souls by sinful compliance against our Conscience••, then welcome the worst of deaths rather than such a life.

Look into the stories of the Martyrs, and you shall find this was the rule they still governed themselves by; a Dun∣geon, a Stake, a Gibbet, any thing rather than guilt upon the inner man: death was welcome even in its most dreadful form, to escape ruine to their precious and immortal Souls. One kissed the Apparitor that brought him the tidings of his death. Another being advised, when he came to the cri∣tical point on which his life depended, to have a care of

himself; So I will, said he, I will be as careful as I can of my best self, my Soul. These men understood the value and precious worth of their own Souls; and certainly we shall never prove couragious and constant in sufferings, till we understand the worth of our Souls, as they did. Consider and compare these sufferings in a few obvious particulars, and then determine the matter in thine own breast.

(1.) How much easier it is to endure the torments of men in our bodies, than to feel the terrors of God in our Consci∣ences? Can the Creature strike with an arm like God? O think what it is for the wrath of God to come into a mans bowels like water, and like oyl into his bones, as the ex∣pression is, Psal. 109.18. Sure there is no compare be∣twixt the strokes of God and men.

(2.) The sufferings of the body are but for a moment. When the Proconsul told Polycarp that he would tame him with fire: he replied, Your fire shall burn but for the space of an hour, and then it shall be extinguished; but the fire that shall devour the wicked will never be quenched: the sufferings of a moment are nothing to eternal sufferings.

(3.) Sufferings for Christ are usually sweetned and made easie by the consolations of the Spirit; but Hell-torments have no relief, they admit of no ease.

(4.) The life you shall live in that body, for whose sake you have damned your Souls, will not be worth the having: it will be a life without comfort, light or joy: and what is there in life, separate from the joy and comfort of life?

(5.) In a word, if you sacrifice your bodies for God and your Souls, freely offer them up in love to Christ and his Truth: your Souls will joyfully receive and meet them again at the Resurrection of the Just; but if your poor Souls be now ensnared and destroyed by their fond indulgence to their bodies, you will leave them at death despairing, and meet them at the Resurrection howling.