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 way to Hell by Formality barred up.

1. No sin intangles the Souls of men faster, or damns them with more certainty and aggravation, than the sin of formal Hypocrisie. It holds the Soul fastest on Earth, and sinks it deepest into Hell. There was no sort of men upon whom the Doctrine of Christ and the Apostles had so little success and effect, as the Scribes and Pharisees: they derided him, when Publicans and sinners trembled and believed, Luke 16.14, 15. the form of Godliness wards off all convictions: their zeal for the Externals of Religion secures them against the fears of damnation, whilst in the mean while their Hypocri∣sie plunges them deeper into Hell, than others that never made such shews of Sanctimony and Devotion: He shall ap∣point him his portion with hypocrites, Matt. 24.51. that is, he shall be punished in Hell as Hypocrites are punished, viz. with the greatest and forest punishment. Hypocrisie is a double iniquity, and will be punished with double destru∣ction: their ungrounded hopes of Heaven serve but to pully up their wretched Souls to a greater height of vain confi∣dence, which gives them the more dreadful jerk in their la∣mentable and eternal disappointment.

2. Blind superstitious Zeal, which spends it self only a∣bout the Externals of Religion, usually prepares and inga∣geth men in a more violent persecution of those that are re∣ally godly and conscientious. The Lord opened a great door of opportunity at Antioch to Paul, the whole City came to∣gether to attend the discoveries of Christ in the first publica∣tion of the Gospel, and the poor Gentiles began to taste the sweetness of the Gospel; but the Devil perceiving his King∣dom begin to totter, immediately stirred up his instruments

to persecute the Apostles, and drive them out of the Coun∣try, and who more fit for that work, than the devout and honourable women? Acts 13.15. these stirred up their Hus∣bands and all they had influence upon,* 1.1 under a fair pretence of zeal for the Law, to obstruct the progress of the Gospel. No Bird (saith one) like the living Bird to draw others into the net. Men of greatest names and pretensions to Religi∣on, if graceless, are the most dangerous instruments the De∣vil can imploy to the ruine and extirpation of true Godliness. Such a Zealot was Paul in his unregenerate state.

3. Nothing is more common than to find men hot and zea∣lous against false Worship, whilst their hearts are as cold as a stone in the Vitals and Essentials of true Religion. Many can dispute warmly against Adoration of Images, praying to Angels and Saints departed, who all the while are like those dead Images which others worship. Iehu was a Zealot a∣gainst Idolatry, and yet the vital power of true Godliness was a stranger to his Soul, 2 Kings 10.15, 16. The Phari∣sees spared no pains to make a Proselyte, yet all the while were the Children of the Devil themselves, Matt. 23.15.

This is a sad case, yet what more common? The Lord open the eyes of these men, and convince them in season, that their Zeal runs in the wrong Chanel, and spends it self upon things which shall never profit them. O if they were but as much concerned to promote the love to God, and life of Godliness in themselves and others, as they are about some external accidents and appendages of Religion, what blessings would they be to the World, and what evidence would they have of their own sincerity?

Notes

• * 1.1

  Satan per co∣stam, tanquam per scalam, ad c••r ascendit, Gregor.