Sacred Demonstrations, or the Christian Euclid, Book II

Man differs from the angels in that he conceives and knows things in this body by the aid of reason and the senses; the angel, however, since it is an intellect not needing the instruments of the senses, knows all things in the intuition of God. Man is mortal, so that by death the senses may be defected along with the matter and finally united again to their spirit, so that the body may act in the manner of an intellect, which I will teach later. No philosopher or theologian has ever denied that man has free will. It is true that it is quite corrupt, as will be seen; but if man, for whose sake the world was made, lacked that part which is most excellent among good things, he would be inferior and more miserable than other animals, since they seek things that make for their health and preservation and flee toward corruption more diligently than man—not indeed that man is destitute of will, but it is so occupied with infinite miseries of which he is the author himself that those things which benefit other animals harm him, such as food, drink, sexual things, the desire to dominate, and so on. Man is the only one of the animals capable of religion, because he is animated by nature as his guide to return gratitude to the highest God for such immense benefits. How great is the power of providence and how wonderful it is in the composition of the microcosmos little world/man! As he is the master over all animals, so there is no nature of which he is not a participant, which it would be long and superfluous to recount now, since no one has failed to treat it. The image of God in him is: in acting, power, knowledge, and will (which is one thing), and apprehension, reasoning, and memory (which is one thing), etc., in soul and body as I touched upon in the first book, chapter on the Trinity. The rest are clear in the description. Now I will take up the order of nature by repeating three things: cause, effect, and end. But since each of these is spoken of in many ways, a division ought to precede the description. Causes are manifold: primary, secondary, remote, joined, certain, uncertain, patent, manifest, and latent, antecedent, connected, or impressed.