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 barr'd.

1. Let all Parents consider what a fearful thing it is to be the instruments of ruining for ever those that received their Beings instrumentally from them; and to seek whose good, they stand obliged by all the Laws of God and Nature.

In vain are all your cares and studies for their bodies, whilst their Souls perish for want of knowledge. You re∣joyced at their birth, but they will have cause to curse the day they were born of you, and say, Let the day perish where∣in I was born, and the night in which I was conceived. You were solicitous for their bodies, but careless of their Souls; earnest to see them rich, but indifferent whether they were gracious. You neglected to teach them the way of Salva∣tion, but the Devil did not neglect to teach them the way of sin. You will one day wish you had never been Parents, when the dol••ful cries of your damned Children shall ring such Notes as these in your Ears. O cursed Father, O cruel, merciless Mother, whose examples have drawn me after you into all this misery. You had time enough, and motives enough to have warned me of this place and misery whilst my heart was tender, and my affections pliable: Had it not been as easie to have put a Bible as a Play-book before me? To have chastised me when I provoked God by sin, as when I provoked you about a trifle? One word spoken in season might have saved my Soul; one reproof wisely given, and set on by your example, might have preserved me. Had it not been the same pains to have asked me, Child, what wilt thou do to be saved? as what wilt thou do to live in the world? Or had I but observed any serious Religion in you, had I but found or heard my Father or Mother upon their knees in pray∣er, it might have awakened me to a consideration of my condition: in my youth I was shame fac'd, fearful, credulous, and apt to imitate; had you had but wisdom, as other Parents have, to have taken hold of any of these handles in time, you had rescued my Soul from Hell. Nay, so cruel have you been to your own Child, that you allowed me no time (if I had had a disposition) for any exercise of Religion; yea, you have quenched and stifled the sparks of convictions, and better inclinations that sometimes were in my heart. O happy had it been, if I had never been born

of you, or seen your faces. This must be the result and issue of your negligence, except God by some other hand (which is no thanks to you) rescue them from their impending ruine.

〈…〉〈…〉ldren, whose unhappy Lot it is to be born of, 〈…〉〈…〉 carnal and irreligious Parents, consider God hath endued them with a Reason and Conscience of their own, to enable them to make a better choice than their Pa∣rents did, and that there is no taking Sanctuary from the wrath of Go•• in their Parents examples. We read in 1 Kings 14.13. of a good Abijah in whom was found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Ieroboam. Here was a Child that would not follow his wicked Father to Hell, though he had both the authority of a Father, and of a King over him.* 1.1 You must honour your Parents, but still you must prefer your God before them. God will ne∣ver lay it to your account as your sin, but place it to the ac∣count of your duty and comfort, that you refused to follow them in paths of sin and destruction. No Law of God, no tye of Nature binds you to obey their commands, or tread in their steps, farther than they command in Gods Autho∣rity and Name, and walk in his ways. Your temptations indeed are strong, and disadvantages great, but the greater will the mercy of your deliverance be. It will be no Plea for you at the Judgment-seat to say, Lord, my Father or Mother did so and so before me, and I thought I might safe∣ly follow them▪ or thus and thus they commanded me, and I thought I was bound by thy command to obey them: Therefore look to your own Souls, if they be so desperate to cast away their own. If some Children had not minded their own Salvation more than their Parents minded it, they had never been saved.

3. Let this consideration work upon the hearts and bow∣els of all serious Christians to pity and help those that are like to perish under this temptation; and if their Parents be so ignorant that they cannot, or so negligent that they do not instruct and warn their own Children, you that at any time have an opportunity to help them, have compassion on them and do it. 'Tis true they are none of your Children

by Nature; but would it not be a singular hon•••••• and com∣fort to you, if God should make them so by 〈…〉〈…〉 thou∣sands of Children (and it may be some of you 〈◊〉〈◊〉 more in∣debted to meer strangers upon this accoun•• 〈…〉〈…〉 their nearest relations; you know not how much 〈…〉〈…〉∣nal word may do them: all have not ability 〈…〉〈…〉∣ly useful this way, as a late worthy Minister of our own Na∣tion hath been, who in compassion to the ••ark and barba∣rous corners in Wales, where ignorance and poverty shut up the way of Salvation to them, at a vast ex••••nce procured the Translation and Printing of the Bible in their own Tongue, and freely sent it among them. O you that have the bowels of Christians in you, pity and help them. What is it, for the saving of a precious Soul, to drop a serious Exhor∣tation, as you have opportunity, upon them, to bestow a Bible or suitable Book upon them? Believe it, these little summs of shillings and pence so bestow'd, will stand for more in the Audit day, than all the hundreds and thousands other ways expended.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Amandus geni∣tor, sed praepo∣nendus Creator.