The Institution of Christian Religion

This is in deed generally true, so that yet our eyes & senses ⟨p. 58⟩overpass not that unmarked which experience plainly showeth, that some mothers have full and plentiful breasts, some other almost dry, as it pleaseth God to feed one more liberally, and an other more scarcelye• But they which give the due praise to the almightiness of God, do receive double profit thereby, the one that he hath sufficiently large ability to do them good, in whose possession are both heaven and earth, and to whose beck all creatures do attend upon, to yield themselves to his obedience: the other, that they may safely rest in his protection, to whose will are subject all these hurtful things that may any way be feared, by whose authority as with a bridle Satan is restrained with all his furies and all his preparation, upon whose beck doth hang all that ever is against our safety. And no other way but this can the immeasurable and superstitious fears be corrected or appeased, which we oftentimes conceive by dangers happening unto us. Superstitiously fearful I say we be, if where creatures do threaten us or give us any cause of fear, we be so afraid thereof, as if they had of themselves any force or power to do us harm, or did unforeseen or by chance hurt us, or as if against the hurts that they do,¹ there were not sufficient help in God. As for example. The Prophet forbiddeth the children of God that they should not fear the stars and signs of the heaven, as the unbelievers are wont to do. He condemneth not every kind of fear. But when the unbelievers to give away the government of the world from God unto Planets, do feign that their felicity or misery doth hang on the decrees and foreshowings of the stars, and not on the will of God, so cometh it to pass that their fear is withdrawn away from that only one, whom they ought to have regarded, unto the stars and comets. Whoso therefore will beware of this unfaithfulness, let him keep always in remembrance that there is not in the creatures a wandering power, working or motion, but that they are governed by the secrete counsel of God, so that nothing can chance but that which is decreed by him both witting and willing it so to be.

This is in dede generally true, so yt yet our eyes & senses ⟨p. 58⟩