The Soul of Man, Title page – Dedication
Πνευματολογια· 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, seasonably 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 IOHN FLAVEL, Minister of the Gospel of Iesus Christ, late of Dartmouth.
foreign.
Trism.
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Phocylides.
Quid de Turcis, Tartaris, Moschis, Indis, Persis, aliisque omnibus nunc temporis Barbaris Nationibus dicâm? Nemo tam Barbarus, aut impius est, qui non sentiat post mortem superesse loca, in quibus animae aut pro malefactis pu…iantur, aut coronentur, deliciisque perfruantur pro benefactis.
Zanch. de Animae immortalitate, p. 653.
London, Printed for Francis Tyton, at the Three Daggers in Fleetstreet, 1685.
To the much honoured his dear Kinsman, Mr. Iohn Flavell, and Mr. Edward Crispe of London, Merchants; and the rest of my worthy Friends in London, Ratcliffe, Shadwell, and Lymehouse: Grace, Mercy, and Peace.
Dear Friends,
AMong all the Creatures in this lower World, none deserves to be stiled great, Nihil interra magnum praeter hominem, nihil in homine praeter mentem. Favorin. E…coelo descendit foreign. Juvenal. Nulla scientia melior illa qua homo novit scripsum: relinque ergo caetera, & teipsum discute: per te curre: in te confiste: à te incipiat cogitatio tua, & in te finiatur.but Man; and in Man nothing is found worthy of that Epithet, but his Soul.
The study and knowledge of the Soul was therefore always reckoned a rich and necessary improvement of time. All Ages have magnified these two words, know thy self, as an Oracle descending from Heaven.
No knowledge, saith Bernard, is better than that whereby we know our selves: leave other matters therefore, and search thy self; run through thy self; make a stand in thy self; let thy thoughts, as it were, circulate, begin and end in thy self. Strain not thy thoughts in vain about other things, thy self being neglected.
The study and knowledge of Iesus Christ, must still be allow'd to be most excellent and necessary: But yet the Worth of Necessity of Christ, is unknown to Men, till the value, wants, and dangers of their own Souls be first discovered to them.
The disaffectedness and aversation of men to the study of their own Souls, is the more to be admired; not only because of the weight and necessity of it, but the alluring pleasure and sweetness that is found therein. What *Quid jucundius quam scire quid simus, quid fuerimus, quid …rimus, & cum his etiam divina atque suprema illa post obitum Mundique vicissitudines?Cardan speaks is experimentally felt by many, that scarce any thing is more pleasant and delectable to the Soul of man, than to know what he is, what he may, and shall be; and what those Divine and Supream things are which he is to enjoy after death, and the Vicissitudes of this present World: For we are Creatures conscious to our selves, of an immortal Nature, and that we have something about us which must overlive this mortal flesh; and is therefore ever and anon some way or other hinting and intimating to us its expectations of, and designations for a better life than that it now lives in the Body, and that we shall not cease to bee, when we cease to breathe.
And certainly, my Friends, Discourses of the Soul and its immortality; of Heaven and of Hell, the next and only receptacles of unbodied Spirits, were never more seasonable and necessary than in this Atheistical age of the World, wherein all serious piety and thoughts of immortality are ridicul'd, and hissed out of the company of many: As if those old condemned Hereticks the foreign who asserted the corruptibility and mortality of the Soul as well as Body, had been again revived in our days.
And as the Atheism of some, so the tepidity and unconcerned carelessness of the most needs and calls for such potent Remedies as Discourses of this kind do plentifully afford. I dare appeal to your charitable Judgments, whether the Conversations and Discourses of the Many, do indeed look like a serious pursuit of Heaven, and a flight from Hell?
Long have my thoughts bended towards this great and excellent Subject, and many earnest desires I have had, (as I believe all thinking persons must needs have) to know what I shall be when I breathe not. But when I had engaged my Meditations about it, two great rubs opposed the farther progress of my thoughts therein: Namely,
I. The difficulty of the Subject I had chosen; And,
II. The distractions of the times in which I was to write upon it.
I. As for the Subject, such is the subtilty and sublimity of its nature, and such the knotty Controversies in which it is involv'd, that it much better deserves that inscription than Minerva's Temple at Saum did, *foreignNever did any Mortal reveal me plainly.
Animam praesentem mentis acie vix, aut ne vix quidem, assequimur, sed qualis sit futura, quomodo indagabimus? Laboranthic maxima ingenia, & caligo conatus etiam generosos non rarò eludit. Jos. Stern. de Morte, cap. 20.It is but little that the most clear and sharp-sighted do discern of their own Souls now in the state of composition, and what then can we positively and distinctly know of the life they live in the state of Separation? The darkness in which these things are involved, doth greatly exercise, even the greatest Witts; and frequently elude and frustrate the most generous attempts. Many great Scholars, whose natural and acquired abilities singularly furnished and qualified them to make a clearer discovery, have laboured in this field usque ad sudorem, & pallorem, even to sweat and paleness, and done little more but intangle themselves and the Subject more than before. This cannot but discourage new attempts.
And yet without some knowledge of the hability and subjective capacity of our Souls, to enjoy the good of the World to come, even in a state of absence from the Body, a principal relief must be cut off from them under the great and manifold tryals they are to encounter in this evil World.
As for my self, I assure you I am deeply sensible of the inequality of my shoulders to this Burthen: and have often enough (since I undertook it) of that grave and necessary Caution of the Poet, Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis …quam viribus, & versate diù quid ferre recusent, quid valeant humeri. Horace.to wield and poise the burden as Porters use to do, before I undertook it. Zuinglius blamed Carolostadius (as some may do me) for undertaking the Controversie of that Age, because, saith he, Non habet satis humerorum; his shoulders are too weak for it.
And yet I know mens labours prosper not according to the art and elegancy of the composure, but according to the divine blessing which pleaseth to accompany them. Ruffinus tells us of a learned Philosopher at the Council of Nice, who stoutly defended his Thesis against the greatest Witts and Scholars there, and yet was at last fairly vanquished, by a man of no extraordinary parts: of which Conquest the Philosopher gave this candid and ingenuous account, Against words (said he) I opposed words, and what was spoken, I overthrew by the art of speaking; But when instead of words, power came out of the mouth of the Speaker, words could no longer withstand truth; nor man oppose the power of God.
O that my weak endeavours might prosper under the like influence of the Spirit upon the hearts of them that shall read this inartificial, but well-meant Discourse.
I am little concerned about the Contempts and Censures of fastidious Readers. I have resolved to say nothing that exceeds Sobriety, nor to provoke any man, except my dissent from his unproved Dictates must be his provocation.
Perhaps there are some doubts and difficulties relating to this Subject, which will never be fully solved till we come to Heaven. For Man by the Fall being less than himself, doth not understand himself, nor will ever perfectly do so, until he be fully restored to himself; which will not be whilst he dwells in a Body of sin and death. And yet it is to me past doubt, that this as well as other Subjects might have been much more cleared than it is, if instead of the proud Contendings of masterly Wits for Victory, all had humbly and peaceably applied themselves to the impartial search of truth.
Truth like an Orient Pearl in the bottom of a River would have discovered it self by its native lustre and radiancy, had not the feet of Heathen Philosophers, cunning Atheists, and daring School Divines disturbed and foul'd the stream.
2. And as the difficulties of the Subject are many, so many have been the interruptions and Avocations I have met with whilst it was under my hand: Which I mention for no other end but to procure a more favourable Censure from you, if it appear less exact than you expected to find it. Such as it is I do with much respect and affection, tender it to your hands, humbly requesting the blessing of the Spirit may accompany it to your hearts. If you will but allow your selves to think close to the matter before you, I doubt not but you may find somewhat in it apt both to inform your minds, and quicken your affections. I know you have a multiplicity of business under your hands, but yet I hope your great concern makes all others daily to give place, and that how clamorous and importunate soever the Affairs of this World be, you both can and do find time to sit alone and bethink your selves of a much more important business you have to do.
My Friends, we are Borderers upon Eternity; we live upon the Confines of the Spiritual and Immaterial World. We must shortly be associated with bodyless Beings, and shall have (after a few days are past) no more concerns for Meat, Drink, and Sleep, buying and selling, Habitations and Relations, than the Angels of God now have. Beside, we live here in a State of Tryal. Man (as Scaliger fitly calls him) is Utriusque Mundi nexus, one in whom both Worlds do meet, his Body participates of the lower, his Soul of the upper World. Hence it is he finds such tugging and pulling, this way, and that way; upward, and downward; both Worlds as it were contending for this invaluable prize, the precious Soul. All Christs Ordinances are instituted, and his Officers ordained for no other use or end, but the Salvation of Souls: Books are valuable according to their Conducibility to this end. How rich a Reward of my Labours shall I account it, if this Treatise of the Soul, may but promote the Sanctification and Salvation of any Readers Soul!
To your hands I first tender it. It becomes your Property, not only as a Debt of Justice, the fulfilling of a Promise made you long since upon your joynt and earnest desires for the publication of it; but as an acknowledgment of the many Favours I have received from you, to one of you I stand obliged in the Bond of Relation, and under the sense of many Kindnesses, beyond whatever such a degree of Relation can be supposed to exact.
You have here a succinct account of the Nature, Faculties, and Original of the Soul of Man, as also of its infusion into the Body by God, without intitling himself to the guilt and sin resulting from that their Union.
You will also find the breath of your Nostrils to be the Nexus, Tie, or Bond, which holds your Souls and Bodies in a personal Union; and that whilst the due Crasis and Temperament of the Body remains, and Breath continues; your Souls hang as by a weak and slender thread, over the state of a vast Eternity in Heaven or in Hell: Which will inform you both of the value of your breath, and the best way of improving it, whilst you enjoy it.
The Immortality of the Soul is here asserted, proved, and vindicated from the most considerable Objections, so that it will evidently appear to you, by this Discourse, you do not cease to be, when you cease to breathe: And seeing they will over-live all Temporal Enjoyments, they must necessarily perish, as to all their Joys, Comforts, and Hopes, (which is all the Death that can be incident to an Immortal Spirit) if they be not in the proper season secured and provided of that never-perishing food of Souls, God in Christ, their Portion for ever.
Here you will find the Grounds and Reasons of that strong inclination which you all feel them to have to your Bodies, and the necessity (notwithstanding that) of their divorce and separation from their beloved Bodies; and that it would manifestly be to their prejudice if it should be otherwise. And to overcome the unreasonable Aversations of Believers, and bring them to a more becoming chearful submission to the Laws of death, whensoever the Writ of Ejection shall be served upon them: You will here find a representation of that blessed life, comely order, and most delightful employment of the incorporeal People inhabiting the City of God; wherein, beside those sweet Meditations which are proper to feast your hungry affections; you will meet with divers unusual, though not vain or unuseful Questions stated and resolved; which will be a grateful entertainment to your inquisitive and searching minds.
'Tis possible they may be censured by some as undeterminable and unprofitable Curiosities; but as I hate a presumptious intrusion into unrevealed Secrets, so I think it a weakness to be discouraged in the search of truth so far as it is fit to trace it, by such damping and causeless Censures. Nor am I sensible I have in any thing transgressed the bounds of Christian Sobriety, to gratifie the Palate of a nice and delicate Reader.
I have also here set before the Reader an Idea or representation of the state and case of damned Souls, that if it be the Will of God, a seasonable discovery of Hell may be the means of some mens recovery out of the danger of it, and closed up the whole with a Demonstration of the invaluable preciousness of Souls, and the several dangerous snares and artifices of Satan their professed Enemy to destroy and cast them away for ever.
This is the design and general scope of the whole, and of the principal parts of this Treatise, and Oh that God would grant me my hearts desire on your behalf in the perusal of it! Even that it may prove a sanctified instrument in his hand both to prepare you for, and bring you in love with the unbodied life to make you look with pleasure into your Graves, and die by consent of Will, as well as necessity of Nature. I remember Dr. Staughton in a Sermon preached before King Iames, relates a strange Story of a little Child in a Shipwrack fast asleep upon its Mothers lap as she sate upon a piece of the Wrack amidst the Waves; the Child being awaked with the noise, asked the Mother what those things were, she told it they were drowning Waves to swallow them up, the Child with a pretty smiling Countenance, beg'd a stroke from its Mother to beat away those naughty Waves, and chid them as if they had been its Play-mates. Death will shortly Shipwrack your Bodies, your Souls will sit upon your lips, ready to expire, as they upon the Wrack ready to go down▪ Would it not be a comfortable and most becoming frame of mind to sit there with as little dread as this little One did among the terrible Waves. Surely if our Faith had but first united us with Christ, and then loosed our hearts off from this inchanting and ensnaring World, we might make a fair step towards this most desireable temper: but unbelief and earthly mindedness make us loth to venture.
I blush to think what bold adventures those men made, who upon the Contemplation of the Properties of a despicable stone first adventured quite out of sight of Land under its conduct and direction, and securely trusted both their Lives and Estates to it, when all the eyes of Heaven were vail'd from them, amid'st the dark Waters, and thick Clouds of the Sky; when I either start, or at least give an unwilling shrug, when I think of adventuring out of sight of this World under the more sure and steady direction and conduct of Faith and the Promises. To cure these evils in my own and the Readers heart, these things are written, and in much respect and love tendered to your hands, as a Testimony of my Gratitude, and deep sense of the many Obligations you have put me under. That the Blessings of the Spirit may accompany these Discourses to your Souls, afford you some assistance in your last and difficult work of putting them off at death with a becoming chearfulness, saying in that hour, Can I not see God till this Flesh be laid aside in the Grave: Must I die before I can live like my self? Then die my Body and go to thy dust, that I may be with Christ. With this design, and with these hearty Wishes, dear and honoured Cousin, and worthy Friends, I put these Discourses into your hands, and remain
Your Most obliged Kinsman and Servant. Io. Flavell.