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 III.

HEnce let us estimate the evil of sin, and see what a dreadful thing that is which men commonly sport themselves with, and make so light of: it is not only a wrong and injury to the Soul, but the loss and utter ruine of the Soul for ever.

It is said, Prov. 8.36. He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul: And if this were all the mischief sin did us, it were bad enough, a wrong to the Soul is a greater evil than the ruine of the body or estate, and all the outward enjoy∣ments of this life can be: but to lose the precious Soul, and destroy it to all Eternity, O who can estimate such a loss! Now the result and last effect of sin is death, the death of the precious Soul, Rom. 6.21. The end of those things is death. So Ezek. 18.4. The soul that sinneth shall dye.

Sin doth not destroy the Being of the Soul by annihilation, but it doth that which the damned shall find and acknow∣ledge to be much worse; it cuts off the Soul from God, and deprives it of all its felicity, joy, and pleasure, which con∣sists in the enjoyment of him. Such is dolefulness and fear∣fulness of this result and issue of sin, that when God himself speaks of it, he puts on a passion, and speak of it with the

most feeling concernment, Ezek 33.11. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked: turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye dye, O house of Israel? q. d. why will ye wil∣fully cast away your own Souls? why will ye chuse the plea∣sures of sin for a season at the price of my wrath and fury poured out for ever? O think upon this, you that make so light a matter of committing sin. We pity those who in the depth of melancholy or desperation lay violent hands upon themselves, and in a desperate mood cut their own throats; but certainly for a man to murder his own Soul, is an act of wickedness as much beyond it, as the value of the Soul is above the body.