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 I.

IF there be so many ways of losing the Soul, and such mul∣titudes of Souls lost in every one of them, then the number of saved Souls must needs be exceeding small.

The number of the saved may be considered either abso∣lutely, or comparatively. In the first consideration they ap∣pear great and many, even a great multitude which no man can number, Rev. 7.9. but if compared with those that are lost, they make but a small remnant, Isa. 1.9. a little flock, Matt. 12.32. For when we consider how vastly the King∣dom of Satan is extended, who is called the God of this World, from the world of people who are in subjection to him; how small a part of this earthly Globe is enlightned with the beams of Gospel-light, and that Satan is the acknowledged Ruler of all the rest, Eph. 6.12. But when it shall be farther considered, that out of this spot on which the light of the Gospel is risen, the far greatest part are lost also: O what a poor handful remains to Jesus Christ, as the Purchace of his Blood!

'Tis of trembling consideration, how many thousands of Families amongst us are meer Nurseries for Hell, Parents bringing forth, and breeding up Children for the Devil, not one word of God (except it be in the way of blasphemy or prophaneness) to be heard among them. How naturally their ignorant and wicked Education puts them in the course and tide of the world, which carries them away irresistibly to Hell. How one sinner confirms and animates another in the same sinful course, till they be all past hope or remedy. How the rich are taken with the baits of sensual pleasures, and the poor lost in the brake of distracting worldly cares, except here and there a Soul pluckt out of the snare of the Devil by the wonderful power and arm of God. On the one side, you may see multitudes drowned in open prophane∣ness and debauchery; and on the other side, many thou∣sands securely sleeping in the state of Civility and Morality. Some key-cold, and without the least sense of Religion; others Hell-hot with blind zeal and superstitious madness

against true Godliness, and the sincere Practitioners of it. Some living all their days under the Ordinances of God, and never touched with any conviction of their sin or misery; others convinced, and making some faint offers at Religion, but their convictions (like blossoms nipt with a frosty mor∣ning) fall off, and no fruit follows. And as Rubies, Sa∣phires, and Diamonds are very few in comparison of the Peb∣bles and common stones of the Earth; so are true Christians in comparison of multitudes that perish in the snares of Sa∣tan.