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 ...

IV 1.1Inference VI.

MOreover, if God have created our Souls vital Substan∣ces, to animate and act those bodies, How indispen∣sably necessary is it, that a principle of spiritual life do quicken and govern that Soul, which quickens and governs our bodies, and all the members of them? Otherwise, though in a natural sense we have living souls, yet they are dead whilst they live.

The Apostle in 1 Cor. 15.45, 46. compares the ani∣mal life we live, by the union of our souls and bodies, with the spiritual life we live, by the union of our souls with Jesus Christ. And so it is written (viz. in my Text) The first Man Adam was made a living Soul, the last Adam was made a quickning spirit. He opposes the animal to the spiri∣tual life, and the two Adams from whom they come: And shews in both respects, the excellency of the Spiri∣tual above the Animal life, not in point of Priority, for that which is natural, is before that which is spiritual, (and it must be so, because the natural Soul is the recipient Sub∣ject of the spirits quickning and sanctifying operations) but in point of dignity and real excellency. To how little pur∣pose, or rather to what a dismal, and miserable purpose, are we made living souls, except the Lord from Heaven by his quickning power make us spiritual and holy Souls? The natural Soul rules and uses the body as * 1.2 an Artificer doth his Tools; and except the Lord renew it by grace, Sa∣tan will rule that which rules thee, and so all thy mem∣bers will be instruments of inquity to fight against God. The actions performed by our bodies, are justly reputed and reckon'd by God to the Soul, † 1.3 because the Soul is the spring of all its motions, the fountain of its life and operati∣ons. What it doth by the body its instrument, is as if it were done immediately by it self; for without the Soul, it can do nothing.

Notes

• IV 1.1

  A Vital Substance.
• * 1.2

  Corpus orga∣no simile est, anima A••tificis ratio••em obti∣net. Irenaeus lib. 2.
• † 1.3

  Omnia quae∣cunque fecerit corpus, sive bonum, sive malum, ani∣mae reputantur. Origen. in Job.