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.I 1.1

FRom the substantial Nature of the Soul, which we have proved to be a Being distinct from the Body, and subsisting by it self, we are informed, That great is the dif∣ference betwixt the death of a Man, and the death of all other creatures in the world. Their souls depend on, and perish with their bodies; but ours neither result from them, nor perish with them. My Body is not a Body, when my Soul hath forsaken it; but my Soul will remain a Soul, when this body is crumbled into dust. Men may live like beasts, a meer sensual life; yea, in some sense, they may dye like beasts, a stupid death: but in this there will be found a vast difference, Death kills both parts of the Beasts, destroyes matter and form; it toucheth only one part of Man, it destroyeth the Body, and only dislodgeth the Soul, but cannot destroy it.

In some things Solomon shews the Agreement betwixt our death and theirs, Eccles. 3.19, 20, 21. That which be∣fall••th the Sons of Men, befalleth the Beasts; even one thing befalleth them. As the one dyeth, so dyeth the other, all go to one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. We

breathe the same common air they breathe; we feel the same pains of death they feel; our bodies are resolved into the same earth theirs are. O! but in this is the difference, The spi∣rit of Man goeth upward, and the spirit of a Beast goeth downward to the Earth. Their spirits go two ways at their dissoluti∣on; The one to the Earth, the other to God that gave it, as he speaks, cap. 12.7. Though our Respiration, and Expiration have some Agreement, yet great is the odd; in the consequences of death, to the one and other. They have no pleasures nor pains besides those they enjoy or feel now; but so have we, and those eternal, and un∣speakable too. The Soul of Man like the bird in the shell, is still growing and ripening in sin or grace,* 1.2 till at last the shell breaks by death, and the Soul flees away to the place it is prepared for, and where it must abide for ever. The body, which is but it's shell, perisheth, but the Soul lives when it is fallen away.

How doth this consideration expose and aggravate the fol∣ly and madness of the sensual world, who herd them∣selves with beasts, though they have souls so near of kin to Angels. The Princes and Nobles of the World abhorr to associate themselves with Mechanicks in their shops, or to take a place among the sottish rabble upon an Ale-bench; They know and keep their distance and Decorum, as still carrying with them a sense of Honour, and abhorring to act beneath it: But we equalize our high and noble Souls, in the manner of life, with the Beasts that perish. Our Tables differ little from the Crib at which they feed; or our Houses from the Stalls and Stables in which they lie down to rest, in respect of any Divine worship, or Heavenly commu∣nication that is to be heard there. Happy had it been for such men (if so they live and dye) that their souls had been of no higher Extraction, or larger Capacity, or longer Du∣ration than that of a Beast: for then, as their comforts, so also their miseries had ended at death. And such they will one day wish they had been.

Notes

• I 1.1

  The Soul a substantial Being.

  Tanta praero∣gativa mani∣fe••••e test••tur ipsius animam, penes quam ••a∣tio principatus est, non esse materialem & caducam, sed s••perioris cujusdam atque eminentis natu∣rae, à conditi∣one reliquarum animarum lon∣gē distantem. Co••imb. Disp. de Anima se∣par. p. 584.
• * 1.2

  Con••••••tu••, fuit, & dis∣cretum et; re••••itque un∣de venera••: terra deo s••m, spiritus sa s••m. Epich••.