The Institution of Christian Religion

Let Epicure answer me, what meting of undivisible bodies, boiling the meat and drink in man, doth dispose part into excrements & part into blood, and bringeth to pass that there is in all the members of man such an endeavouring to do their office, even as if so many several souls did by common advise rule one body.

Let Epicure answer me, what meting of vndiuisible bodyes, boiling the meate and drinke in man, doth dispose part into excrementes & part into bloud, and bringeth to passe that there is in al the members of man such an endeuorynge to do their offyce, euē as if so many seueral soules did by cōmon aduise rule one body.

But I have not now to do with that ••ye of swine. I rather speak §5unto them, that being given to subtleties would by crooked conveyance writhe that cold saying of Aristotle, both to destroy the immortality of the soul, and also to take from God his right. For because there are instrumental powers of the soul, by pretence thereof they bind the soul to the body, that it cannot continue without the body, and with praises of nature they do as much as in them is, suppress the name of God. But the powers of the soul are far from being enclosed in those exercises that serve the body. For what pertaineth to the body, for a man to measure the sky, to gather the number of the stars, to learn the greatness of every one, to know what space they be distant one ⟨image 16⟩from an other, with what swiftness or slowness they go their courses, how many degrees they decline this way or that way? I grant in deed that there is some use of Astrology: but my meaning is only to show that in this so deep searching out of heavenly things, it is not an instrumental measuring, but that the soul hath her offices by it self several from the body. I have showed one example, by which it shall be easy for the readers to gather the rest. Truly the manifold nimbleness of the soul, by which it surveyeth both heaven and earth, joineth things past with things to come, keepeth in memory things heard long before, and expresseth each thing to it self by imagination, also the ingeniousness by which it inventeth things incredible, and which is the mother of so many marvellous arts, are sure tokens of divine nature in man. Beside that, even in sleeping, it doeth not only roll and turn it self, but also conceiveth many things profitable, reasoneth of many things, & also prophecieth of things to come. What shall we in this case say, but that the signs of immortality that are imprinted in man, cannot be blotted out? Now what reason may bear that man shall be of divine nature, and not acknowledge his Creator? Shall we forsooth by judgement that is put into us discern between right and wrong, and shall there be no judge in heaven? Shall we even in our sleep have abiding with us some remnant of understanding, and shall no God be waking in governing the world?