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 ...

The first way to Hell discovered.

1. And to begin where indeed the ruine of very many doth begin, it will be found that an ill Education is the high way to destruction. Vice need not be planted; if the Gardiner neglect to dress, sow, and manure his Garden, he need not give the weeds a greater advantage; but if he also scatter the seed of Hemlock, Docks, and Nettles into it, he spoils it, and makes it fit for nothing. Many Parents, and those godly too, are guilty of too many neglects, through care∣lesness, worldly incumbrances, or fond indulgence, and whilst they neglect the season of sowing better seed, the De∣vil takes hold of it; if they will not improve it, he will; if they teach them not to pray, he will teach them to curse, swear, and lye; if they put not the Bible or Catechise into their hands, he will put obscene Ballads into them: and thus the off-spring of many godly Parents turn into degene∣rate plants, and prove a generation that know not the God of their Fathers. This debauched Age can furnish us with too many sad instances hereof. Thus they are spoiled in the bud; simple ignorance in youth becomes affected and wilful ignorance in age; blushing sins in children become impudent sins in age: and all this for want of a timely and prudent pre∣venting care. Others there are of the rude and ignorant multitude, who are bred themselves much like the Beasts they daily converse withal, and so they are fitly described, Iob 30.6, 7. Go into their houses, and you may sooner find in the window, or upon the shelf, a Pack of Cards, than a Bible or Catechise; their Beds and Tables differ little or not at all from the Stalls and Cribs where beasts lye down

and feed, in respect of any worship of God among them: or if for fashion sake a few words be hudled over in the evening when their bodies are tired, the man saith something, he scarce knows what, the wife is asleep in one corner, the chil∣dren in another, and the servants in a third. This is the Education multitudes of Parents give their Children all the week; and when the Sabbath comes, the most they learn to know at Church, is where their own seat stands, and that it is necessary to speak with such a Neighbour after Prayers, about such or such a bargain or business for the next week.

And others there are who breed their Children as pro∣phanely as these do sottishly, teaching them by their Examples the newest Oaths that were last minted in Hell, and to re∣vile and scoff all serious Godliness and the sincere Professors of it, smiling to hear with what an Emphasis they can talk in the Dialect of Devils, and how wittily they can droll upon godly Ministers and Christians.

Such Families are Nurseries for Hell, and though God by an extraordinary hand of Providence now and then snatch a Soul by conversion from among them, as a brand out of the fire, yet generally they die as they live, going to the gene∣ration of their Fathers where they shall never see light, Psal. 49.19. I know Education and Regeneration are two things, but I also know one is frequently made the instrument of working the other;* 1.1 and that the savour of what first seasons our youth (generally) abides to old age, Prov. 22.6. We may observe all the World over, how tenacious men are of that which is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 delivered to them by their Pa∣rents. O what a cut must it be to the heart of that Father, whose Sons life shall tell his Conscience what a profane Sons lips once told his Father to his face:* 1.2 If I have done evil, I have learnt it of you. Had they felt more of your prudent correction, it might have prevented their destruction: Prov. 23.14. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. That this is a common beaten path to Hell, is beyond all question; but how to bar it up, and stop the multitudes that are engaged in it to their own ruine, this is the labour, this the work. I cannot be large, but I will offer a few weighty Considerations.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Quo semel est imbuta recens, &c.
• * 1.2

  Si malè seci, à te didici.