A TREATISE of the SOUL of
PNEUMATOLOGIA.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
The EPISLTE DEDICATORY.
To the much honoured, his dear kinsman, Mr. JOHN FLAVEL, 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, A MONG all the creatures in this lower world, none deserves to be stiled great, but man; and in man
" nothing is found worthy of that epithet, but his "foul *"
The study, and knowledge of his soul was, therefore, always reckoned a rich, and necessary improvement of time. All ages have magnified these two words, " Know thyself, as an oracle
" descending from heaven t."
" No knowledge, saith Bernard †, is better than that where- " by we know ourselves ; leave other matters therefore, and " search thyself; run through thyself, make a stand in thy- " self; let thy thoughts, as it were, circulate, begin and end
" in thyself."
Strain not thy thoughts in vain about other things, thyself being neglected.
The study and knowledge of Jesus Christ must still be allowedtobethemost excellent and necessary: But yet the worth,
* Nihil in terra magnum præter hominem, nihilin hominepræser mentem.
Favor in.
+-E cælo defcendit, γνωθι σεαυτον. Juvenal. Sat. II . V. 27.
‡ Nullafcientia melior ill a, qua homo novitfeipfum ; relinque ergocatera,et teipfum discute : perte curre, in te confifte; ate incipiat cogitatio tua, et in te finiatur,
The Epiftle DEDICATORY. and 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 || Card an 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 thosedi- " vine and supreme things are, which he is to enjoy after death,
"and the vicissitudes of this present world."
For we are creatures conscious to ourselves of an immortal nature, and that we have something about us which must overlive this mortal flesh, and therefore is ever and anon some way or other hinting, and intimating to us its expectations of, anddefignation for a better life than that it now lives in the body, and that we shall not cease to be, 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 ofunbodied spirits, were never more seasonable, and necessary than in this atheistical age of the world, wherein allferious piety, and thoughts of immortality are ridiculed, and hissed out of the company of many: As if those old condemned Heretics, the Θνηλοψυχιται, 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 carelesness of the most, needs and calls for such potent remedies , as difcourses of this kinddoplentifully afford.
I dare appeal to your charitable judgments, whether the conversations anddiscourses 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.
Quidjucundius quam fcire quidfimus, quid fuerimus, quid erimus, et cum his etiam divina atque fuprema ill a post obitum mundique viciffitudines.
The Epistle DEDICATORY.
I. As for the subject, such is the fubtility and fublimity of its nature, and such the knotty controverfiesin which it is involved, that it much better deserves that inscription, than Minerva's temple at Saum did, * " Never did any mortal reveal
" me plainly."
" It is but little that the most clear, and sharp-sighted dodif- " cern of their own souls, now in the state of composition ; and "what can we positively, and distinctly know of the life they
" live in the state of separation ? The darkness in which these 66 things are involved doth greatly exercise, even the greatest
" wits, and frequentlyelude and frustrate the most generous " attemptst." Many great scholars, whose natural and acquired abilities singularly furnished and qualified them to make a clearer discovery, havelabouredin this field, usque adfudorem etpallorem, even to sweat and paleness, and done little more but in tangle themselves, and the subject more than before; this cannot but discourage new attempts.
And yet, without some knowledge of the hability, and fubjectivecapacityof our souls to enjoy thegoodofthe 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 trials they are to encounter in this evil world.
As for myself, I assure you, I am deeply sensible of the inequality of my shoulders to this burden; and have often thought (since I undertook it) of that grave and necessary cautionofthepoet†, to weild and poise the burden as porters use to do, before I undertook it.
Zuinglius blamed Carolostadius (asfomemaydo me) for undertaking the controversy of that age; because, faith he, Non habetfatishumerorum; 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
† Animam prafentem mentis acie vix, aut ne vix quidem affequimur ; fed qualisfit futura, quomodo indagabimus ? Labor ant hicmaxima ingenia, et caligo conatus etiam generosos non raro eludit.
Jof. Stern. de morte, cap . 20.
† Sumite materiam veftris, quifcribitis, æquam, Viribus : et versate diu, quidferre recufent,
Quid valeant humeri-Horat, de arte poet. 1. 37Examine well , ye writers, weigh with care
What suits your genius, what your strength can bear; For when a well-proportion'd theme you chuse,
Nor words nor method will their aid refuse:
The Epistle DEDICATORY. blessing which pleaseth to accompany them.
Ruffinus tells us ofa learend philofopherattheCouncil of Nice, who ftoutly defended his thesis against the greatest wits, 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 (faidhe) Iopposedwords ; and what was spoken, 1overthrew 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 : norman oppose the power of God.
Othat my weak endeavours might prosper, under the influence of the like spirit, upon the hearts of them that shall read this inartificial, but well-meant discourse.
I am little concerned about the con tempts and cenfures of fa. stidious readers.
I have resolved to say nothing that exceeds sobriety, nor to provoke any man, except my dissent from his unproveddictates mult be his provocation.
Perhaps there are some doubts, and difficulties relating to this subject, which will never fully be solved till we come to heaven.
For man, by the fall,beingless 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 fin 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 ofmasterly wits for victory, all had humbly, and peaceablyapplied themselves to the impartial search of truth .
Truth, like an orient pearl in the bottom of a river, would have discovered itself by its native lustre, and radiancy, had not the feet of Heathen philosophers, cunning Atheists, and daring school divines, disturbed and fouled the stream.
II. 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 appears less exact than you expected to find it.
Such as it is, Ido withmuchrefpect and affection, tender to your hands, humbly requesting the blessing of the Spirit may accompany it to your hearts.
If you will but allow yourselves to think close to the matter before you, Idoubtnotbut 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 af
The Epistle DEDICATORY.
fairsofthis world be, you both can, and do, find time to fit alone,and be think yourselves 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 associate with bodiless beings, and thall have, after a few days are past, no more concerns for meat, drink, and sleep, buying and felling, habitations and relations, than the angels of God now have.
Besides, we live here in a state of trial :
Man, (as Scaliger fitly calls him), is utriusque mend i nexus, Oneinwhomboth worlds do meet; his body participates of the lower, his foul of the upper world; hence it is, that he finds such tugging and pulling this way and that way,y,upward and downward; both worlds, as it were, contending for this invaluable prize, the precious soul.
All Christ's 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 fanctificationand salvation of any reader's foul.
To your hands I first tender it: it becomes your property, not only as adebtofjustice, the fulfilling ofapromisemadeyou long since, upon your joint and earnestdefiresfor the publication of it ; but, as anacknowledgementofthemanyfavours 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 in fusion into the body by God, without intithnghimselfto 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 our souls and bodies in personal union ; and that, whilst the due crafisand 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 he as ven or in hell ; which will inform you both of the value of your breath, and the best wayofimproving it, whilst you enjoy it.
The immortality of the soulishereasserted, proved, andvin dicated from the most considerable objections; so that itwillevidentlyappear to you, by this discourse, you donotceaseto be,when you ccafe to breathe: and, seeing theywilloverliveall
VOL. III.
The Epistle DEDICATORY. 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 fouls,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 to bring them to a more becoming cheerful submission to the laws of death, whenfoever the writ of ejection shall be served upon them; you will here find a representation of that blessed life, comely order, and most delightful imploymentof 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 fearchingminds.
...It is possible they maybe censuredby some as undeterminable andunprofitable curiosities ; but as I hate a presumptuous intrusion into unrevealed secrets, so I think it is a weakness to be discouraged in the search of truth, fo far as it is fit to trace it, by suchdamping and causeless censures. Nor am I sensible ( have in any thing transgressed the bounds ofChristiansobriety, to gratify the palate ofa nice and delicate reader.
I have also here set before the reader an idea, or representation of the state and case of damned fouls, that, if it be the will of God, a feasonable discovery of hell may be the means of some men's recovery out of the danger of it; and closed up the whole with a demonstration of the invaluable preciousness offouls, and the several dangerous snares and artifices of Sat an, 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, O that God would grant me my hearts desire, on your behalf, in the perufal 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.
Stoughton, in afermon preached before king James, relates a strange story ofa little child in a shipwreck, fast afleepupon its mother's lap, as the fat upon apiece of the wreck amidst the
The Epistle DEDICATORY.
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, begg'd a stroke from its mother to beat away those naughty waves, and chide them as if they had been its play-mates.
Death will mortly shipwreck your bodies ; your souls will fit upon your lips ready to expire, as they upon the wreck ready togo down.
Would it not be a comfortable and most becoming frame of mind, to fit 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 enchanting and ensnaring world, we might make a fair step towards this most defireable temper ; but unbeliefand earthly-mindedness make us loth to venture.
I blush to think, what bold adventures thosemen made,who, upon the contemplation of the properties of a despicable stone, first adventured quite out of fight of land, under its conduct and direction, and securely trusted both their lives and estates to it, when all the eyes of heaven were veiled from them, amidst the dark waters, and thick clouds of the sky, when I either start, or at least give an unwilling shrug, when I think ofadventuring out of fight of this world, under the more sure and steady direction and conduct offaithandthepromises. To cure these evils, in my own and the reader's 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 blessing of the Spirit may accompany these discourses to your souls, afford you some assistance in your last anddifficultwork, 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 Idiebefore I can live like myself? then die mybody, and go to thy dust, that I maybe 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,
JOHN FLAVEL.
( 103 ) THE A PREFACE.
MONG many other largesses and rich endowments, bestowed by the Creator's bounty upon the fout of man, the* sentiments and impressions of the world to come, and the ability of reflexionandself-intuition, are peculiar, invaluable, and heavenly gifts, By the former, we have a very great evidence of our own immortality, and designation for nobler employments andenjoyments than this embodied state admits. And by the latter, we may discern theagreeableness of our hearts, and therein the validity of our title to that expected blessedness.
But these heavenly gifts are neglected and abused all the world over.
Degenerate fouls are every where fallen into foa deep an oblivion of their excellent original, spiritual and immortal nature, and alliance to the Father of spirits; that (to use the up braiding expression of a great + philosopher) " they seem
" to be buried in their bodies, as so many filly worms that lurk " in their holes, and are loth to peep forth, and look abroad."
So powerfully do the cares and pleasures of this world charm all, (except a small remnant of regenerate fouls), that nothing but some smart stroke of calamity, or terrible messengers of death can startle them ; (and even those are not always able to do it), and when they do. all the effect is but a transient glance at another, and an unwilling shrug to leave this world, and fo to sleep again.
And thus the impressions and tentiments of the world to come (which are the natural growth and offspring of the soul) are either stified and supprest, as in Atheists ; or bora down by impetuous masterly lusts, as in Sensualists.
And for its self-reflecting and considering power, it seems in many to be a power received in vain.
It is with most fouls as it is with the eye, which fees not itself, though it fees all other objects. There be those that have almost finished the course ofa long life, (wherein a great part of theirtimehath lainupon their hands, as a cheap and useless commodity, which they knew not
We have demonstrated from the common consent of all nations and people, since the creation of the world, especially from the confentof the good and learned, that the human foul is in corrupt i. bleand iminortal ; and that therefore it survives the corrupted body, that it may be for ever either rewarded for good actions, or punished for bad actions.
Zanch. on the immortality of the foul.
† Η δε δειλη ψυχη κατορωρυγμενη εκ σωματι ως, ερπετον νηθες εις φωλεας φίλει τφωλεον, ότι Max. Tyr. Diss. 41 .
The :
PREFACE. what to do with) who yet never spent one solemn entire hour in discourse with their own souls .
What serious heart doth not meltintocompassionoverthedeluded multitude, who are mocked with dreams, and perpetuallybusied about trifles ? Who are
(aftersomanyfrustrated attempts,both of their own, and all past ages) eagerly pursuing the fleeting shadows, who torture and rack their brains to find out the natures and qualities of birds, beasts, and plants; indeed any thing rather than their own souls, which are certainly the most excellent creatures that inhabit this world.
They know the true value and worth ofotherthings, but are not able to estimate the dignity of that highborn spirit which is within them. A spirit which (without the additionofany more natural faculties or powers, if those it hath be but sanctified and devoted to God) is capable of the highest perfections and fruitions,evencompleteconformity to God, and the satisfying visions of God throughout eternity.
They herd themselves with beasts, who are capable of an equality with angels. O what compassionate tears must such a consideration as this draw from the eyes of all that understand the worth of fouls!
As for me, it hath been my fin, and is now the matter of my sorrow, that whilst myriads offouls (of no higher original than mine) are some of them beholding the highest Majesty in heaven, and others giving all diligence to make sure their salvation on earth; I was carried away so many years in the course of this world (like a drop with the current of the tide) wholly forgetting my best self, my invaluable foul ; whilst I prodigally wastedthestores of my time and thoughts upon vanities, that longsincepassed away as the waters which are remembered no more||.
It shall be no shame to me to confess this folly, since the matter of my confession shall go to the glory of my God.
I studied to know many other things, but I knew not myself.
It was with me as with a servant to whom the master commited two things, viz. the child, and the child'scloaths ; the servant is verycarefulofthe cloaths, brushes and washes,starches and irons
+ Ita Dei est ista vita mortal is, ubi homo vanitatifimilisfactus eft; et diest ejus velut umbra præterunt. Aug.deCiv. lib. 21.
C.24.
||Saints after their hearts are renewed by repentance, are not ashamed to acknowledge their ignominious faults, to the glory of God.
For nothing is loft to us that redounds to his praise, who pardoningoursins, transfers us from misery to happiness. Brightwan on Cant.p. 12.
The PREFACE. them,and keeps them safe and clean, but the child is forgotten and lost.
Mybody which is but the garment of my foul,I kept and nourished with excessive care, butmysoulwas long forgotten, and had been lost forever, as othersdailyare, had notGodrouzed it, by the convictions of his Spirit, out of that deep oblivion and deadly slumber.
When the God that formed it, out of free grace to the work of his own hands, had thus recovered it to a sense of its own worth and danger, my next work was to get it united with Christ, and thereby secured from the wrath to come; which I found to be a work difficult to effect, (if it be yet effected), and a work of time to clear, though but to the degree of good hope through grace.
Andfincethehopesandevidencesofsalvationbegantospring up in my soul, and settle the state thereof, I found these three great words, viz. Christ, foul, and eternity, to have a far different, and more awful found in my ear, than ever they used to have.
I lookedonthem from that time, as things of the greatest certainty,and most awful solemnity. These things have laid some weight upon my thoughts, and I felt, at certain seasons, a strong inclination to sequester myself from all other studies, and spend my last days, and most fixed meditations upon these three great and weighty subjects.
I know the subject matter of my studies and enquiries (be it never so weighty)doth not therefore make my meditations and discourse upon it great and weighty : nor am I such a vain opinion at or, as to imaginemydiscourses every way suitable to the dignity of such subjects; no, no, the more I think and study about them, the more I discern the indistinctness, darkness, crudity, and confusion of my own conceptions, and expression of suchgreatand transcendent things as those : but, In mugnis voluiffefat est, I resolved to do what I could : and accordingly some years past I finished and published, in two parts, the Doctrine of Christ; and by the acceptation and success the Lord gave that, he hath encouraged me to go on in this second part of my work, how unequal soever my shoulders are to the burden of it.
The nature, original, immortality, and capacity of mine own soul, for the present lodged in and related to this vile body, destinedtocorruption; together with its existence, employment, perfection, converse with God, and other spirits, both of its own, and of a superior rank and order, when it shall (as I know it shortly mut) put off this its tabernacle ; these things havealongtimebeen the matters of my limited desires to un-
The PREFACE. derstand, fo far as I could fee the pillar of fire (God in his word) enlightening my way to the knowledge of them.
Yea, such is the value I have for them, that I have given them the next place in my esteem, to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and my interest in him.
God hath formed me, as he hath other men, a prospecting creature.
I feel myselfyetuncentered, and short of that state of rest and satisfaction to which my soul, in its natural and spiritual capacity, hath a designation.
I find that I am in a continual motion towards my everlasting abode, and the expence of my time; and many infirmities tell me that I am not far from it: by all which I am strongly prompted to look forward, and acquaint my self as much as I can, with my next place and employment.
I look with a greedy and inquisitive eye that way.
Yet would I not be guilty of an unwarrantable curiosity in searching into revealed things; how willing soever I am to put my head by faith into the world above, and to know the things which Jesus Christ hath purchased and prepared for me, and all the rest that are waiting for his appearance and kingdom. I feel my curiosity checked and repressed by that elegant paronomafia, Rom. xii. 3. Μη υπερφρονείν παρ ο δει φρονείν, αλλα φρονειν ειςτο σωφρονειν, In all things I would be wise unto sobriety.
Igroan under the effects of Adam's itching ambition to know, and would not by repeating his fin, encrease my own misery ; nor yet would I be scared, by his example, into the contraryevilofneglecting the means God hath afforded me, to know all that I can of his revealed will.
*The helps philosophy affords in some parts of this discourse, are too great to be despised, and too small to be admired.
I confess I read the definitions of the soul given by the antient philosophers, with a compassionate smile. When Thales calls ita nature without repose; Afclepiades, an exercitation of sense:
Hefiod, a thing composed of earth and water ; Parmenides, thing composed of earth and fire ; Galen faith it is heat ; Hippocrates, a spirit diffused through the body ; Plato, afelf-moving substance ; Aristotle calls it Entelechia, that by which the body is moved: If my opinion should be asked, which of all these definitions I like best, I should give the same answer which Theo critusgave an ill poet, repeating many of his verses, and ask- : * For to whom is the truth known with certainty without God ? orGodwithout Christ ? or Christ explorated without the Spirit ? or the Spirit vouchsafed without faith ? Tertullian on the soul...
The PREFACE. ingwhich he liked best ; Those (said he) which you have omitted.
Or if they must have the garland as the prize they have thot for, let them have it upon the same reason that was once given to him that always shot wide.
Difficilius est to ties non attingere, Because it was the greatest difficulty to aim so often at the mark, and never come near it.
One word of God gives me more light than a thousand such laborious trifles.
As Caesar was best able to write his own commentaries, fo God only can give the best account of his own creature, on which he hath impressed his own image.
Modern philosophers, assisted by the divine oracles, must needs come closer to the mark, and give us a far better account of the nature of the soul. Yet I have endeavoured not to cloud this subject with their controverfies, or abstruse notions ; remembring what a smart, but deserved check, Tertullian gives those, Qui Platonicum et Ariftotelicum Chriftianismum producunt
Chriftianis. Words are but the servants of matter, I value them as merchants do their ships, not by the gilded head and stern, theneatness of their mould, or curious flags and streamers, but by the foundness of their bottom, largeness of their capacity, and richness of their cargo and loading. The quality of this subject neceffitates, inmanyplaces, the use ofscholaftic terms, which will be obscure to the vulgar reader : but apt and proper words must not be rejected for their obscurity, except plainer words could be found that fit the subject as well, and are as fully expressive of the matter. The unnecessary I have avoided, and the rest explained as I could.
The principal fruits I especially aim at, both to my own and the reader's foul, are, That whilst we contemplate the freedom, pleasure, and satisfaction of that spiritual, incorporeal people, who dwell in the region of light and joy, and are hereby forming to ourselves a true scriptural idea of the blessed stateofthose disembodied spirits, with whom we are to serve, and converse in the temple-worship in heaven ; and come more explicitly and -distinctly to understand the constitution, order, and delightful employments of those our everlasting associates ; we may anfwerably feelthefoundand inordinate love of this animal life fubacted and wrought down; the frightful vizardofdeath drop off, and a more pleasing aspect appear; that no upright foul that shall read these discourses may henceforth be convulfed at the name of death, but chearfully aspire, and with a pleasant expectation wait for the blessed season of its transportation to that blessed assembly.
It is certainly our ignorance of the life of heaven, that makes usdoteaswedo upon the present life. There
The PREFACE.
isagloom, a thick mist overspreading the next life, and hiding, even from the eyes of believers, the glory that is there. We fend forth our thoughts to penetrate this cloud, but they return to us without the desired success .
We reinforce them with a sally of new and more vigorous thoughts, but still they come back in confusion and disappointment, as to any perfect account they canbringus from thence; though the oftnerand closer we think, still the more we growupinto acquaintance with these excellent things.
Another benefit I pray for, and expect from these labours, is, that by describing the horrid estate of those souls which go the other way, and shewing to the living the dismal condition offouls departed in their unregenerate state; some maybe awakened to a seasonable and effectual consideration of their wretched condition, whilst they yet continue under the means and among the instruments of their salvation.
Whatever the fruit of this discourse shall be to others, I have cause to bless God for the advantage it hath already given me.
I begin to find more than ever I have done, in the separate state offanctified fouls, all that is capable of attracting an intellectual nature; and if God will but fix my mind upon this state, and cause my pleased thoughts about it to settle into a steddy frame and temper, I hope I shall daily more and more depreciate and despise this common way of existence ina corporeal prison ; and when the blessed season of my departure is at hand, I shall take a chearful farewel of the greater and lesser elementary world, to which my soul hath been confined, and have an abundant entrance through the broad gate of assurance, unto the blessed, unbodied inhabitants of the world to come.
VOL. III.