Exactly after the same manner, when Arius began to think about God and to conclude by his own reason that God was a most positive and absolute unity, he at first fell upon this proposition, "Perhaps Christ is not God." Then he carried the accumulation of his absurdities so far, as plainly to conclude, and to defend his conclusion, that "Christ is not God." It moved him not at all, that John plainly declares, "The Word was God," John 1:1; that Christ commands men to be baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," Math. 28:19; and that we are called upon to believe in Christ, to worship him and to pray unto him, Acts 13:39; Ps. 97:7. And yet, what absurdity can be greater than that we should take upon ourselves to judge God, since our condition is to be judged by him and by him alone? Wherefore our duty is to stand by and persevere in this principle: that, when we hear God say anything, we believe it, and not dispute about it; but that on the contrary we bring our intellect and every thought into captivity unto Christ. We may therefore appropriately cite the words of the prophet Isaiah, "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established," Is. 7:9. For if we should inquire and inquire until we burst with curiosity, yet we shall never understand how the eye sees, nor how the ear hears, nor what the soul is, etc. And yet, all these things are a part of us, and we use them every day and every moment in all our actions. How then shall we understand those things which exceed all our faculties and senses, and are found in the Word of God alone? Hence it is found in the Word alone, that the ordained bread is the body of Christ, and that the ordained wine is the blood of Christ. These things it is our duty to believe, not to understand; for understand them we cannot. In like manner too the words of God in the present passage of Moses were most simple and plain, "Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden ye shall not eat." But in those words reason did not understand the mind of God, why he willed these things so to be. When therefore Eve, not content with the command of the Lord which she had heard, began curiously to inquire into it, she perished. This temptation therefore is a true example of all those temptations, in which Satan assaults the Word and faith. Before the desire of eating the fruit came to Eve, she had let go the word which God spoke to Adam. Had she held fast this Word, she would have stood in the reverence of God and in faith. On the other hand, no sooner had she let go the Word, than contempt of God entered; and then followed obedience to the devil.