"Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish a dominion even over the earth?" --Job xxxviii., 33. The later books give us such views as the following: "He hath established them [the heavens] for ever and ever; He hath made a decree which shall not pass." --Psa. cxlviii., 6. "Thou art forever, O Jehovah, thy word is established in the heavens; Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth; They continue this day according to thine ordinances, for all are thy servants." --Psa. cxix., 90. "When he established the clouds above; When he strengthened the fountains of the deep; When he gave to the sea his decree, That the waters should not pass his commandment; When he appointed the foundations of the earth." --Prov. viii., 28. Many similar instances will be found in succeeding pages; and in the mean time we may turn to the idea of recurring cycles, which forms the starting-point of the reasonings of Solomon on the current of human affairs, in the book of Ecclesiastes: "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for the ages. The sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to its place whence it arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth unto the north. It whirleth about continually, and returneth again according to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow; unto the place whence the rivers came, thither they return again." I might fill pages with quotations more or less illustrative of the statement in proof of which the above texts are cited; but enough has been given to show that the doctrine of the Bible is not that of fortuitous occurrence, or of materialism, or of pantheism, or of arbitrary supernaturalism, but of invariable natural law representing the decree of a wise and unchanging Creator. It is a common but groundless and shallow charge against the Bible that it teaches an "arbitrary supernaturalism." What it does teach is that all nature is regulated by the laws of God, which like himself are unchanging, but which are so complex in their relations and adjustments that they allow of infinite variety, and do not exclude even miraculous intervention, or what appears to our limited intelligence as such. In opposition to this, it is true, some physicists have held that natural law is a fatal necessity.[19] If they mean by this a merely hypothetical necessity that certain effects must follow if certain laws act, this is in accordance with the Biblical view, for nothing can resist the will of God. But if they mean an absolute necessity that these laws can not be suspended or counteracted by higher laws, or by the will of the Creator, they assert what is not only contrary to Scripture, but absurd, for "blind metaphysical necessity, which is the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things."[20] It could lead merely to a dead and inert equilibrium.