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 fourth way of losing the Soul opened.

IV. Multitudes of Souls are daily lost by rooted Habits and long continued Custom in sin. When men have been long setled in an evil way, they are difficultly reclaimed. Physicians find it hard to cure a Cachexy or ill habit of body; but it's far more difficult to cure an ill custom and habit in sin, Ier. 13.23. Can the Leopard change his spoes, or the Ethiopian his skin? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. The spots of a Leopard, and hue of an Ethiopian, are not by way of external accidental adhesion, if so, washing would fetch them off; but they are innate and contemper'd, be∣longing to the constitution, and not to be alter'd: so are sinful habits and customs in the minds of sinners; by this means it becomes a second Nature, as it were, and strongly determines the mind to sin: A••t••neris assuescero multum est, It's a great matter to be accustomed this way or that, saith Senceca; yea, Caput rei est, hoc vel illo modo, hominem assue∣fieri, 'Tis the very head or root of the matter to be so or so accustomed, saith Aristotle: very much of the strength of sin rises from customary sinning; a brand that hath been once in the fire, easily catches the second time. Every repeated act of sin lessene••h fear, and strengtheneth inclination. An Horse that took an ill stroke at first breaking, and hath continued many years in it, is very difficulty, if ever, to be brought to a better way. What men have been accu∣stomed to from their childhood, they are tenacious of it in their old age. Hence it is, that so few are converted to Christ in their old age. It was recorded for a wonder in the primitive times, that Marcus Cajus Victorius became a Christian in his old age: time and usage fixes the roots of sin deep in the Soul: old trees will not bow as tender plia∣ble plants do. Hence it is, that all essays and attempts to draw men from the course in which they have walked from their youth, are frustraneous and succesless. The Drunkard, the Adulterer, yea the self-righteous Moralist are by long continued usage so fixed in their course, and all this while

Conscience so stupefied by often repeated acts of sin, that it is naturally as impossible to remove a mountain, as the will of a sinner thus confirmed in his wickedness. However, let tryal be made, and the success left to him to whom no length of the time, or difficulty must be objected, or opposed.