Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/115

 they are serving Him and they that know it not. He hath established unchanging habits and natures, and likewise natural concord among all His creatures, even as He hath willed, and for as long as He hath willed; and they shall remain for ever. The motions of the moving bodies cannot be stayed nor turned aside from their course and their appointed order, but the Lord hath so caught and led, and managed all His creatures with His bridle, that they can neither cease from motion, nor yet move more swiftly than the length of His rein alloweth them. Almighty God hath so constrained all His creatures with His power, that each of them is in conflict with the other, and yet upholdeth the other, so that they may not break away but are brought round to the old course, and start afresh. Such is their variation that opposites, while conflicting among themselves, yet preserve unbroken harmony together. Thus do fire and water behave, the sea and the earth, and many other creatures that are as much at variance as they are; but yet in their variance they can not only be in the fellowship, but still more, one cannot exist without the other, and ever one contrary maketh the due measure of the other. So also cunningly and befittingly hath Almighty God established the law of change for all His creatures. Consider springtime and autumn; in spring things grow, in autumn they wither away. Again, take summer and winter; in summer it is warm, in winter cold. So also the sun bringeth bright days, and at night the moon shineth, by the might of the same God. He forbiddeth