CHAPTER V.
THEORY OF GOVERNMENT BY NATURAL LAWS .-- VOLNEY .-- COMBE.
The theory of "natural laws" has been applied to disprove or supersede the doctrine of Creation, by means of the principle of Development.

It has been further applied to _the government_, as well as to the _creation_, of the world; and in this connection, it has been urged as a reason for disbelieving the doctrine of God's special PROVIDENCE, and employed to discredit the efficacy of PRAYER.
When thus applied, it is often associated with the recognition of the Divine existence, and cannot, therefore, be ranked among systems avowedly Atheistic.

But from the earliest times, it has been the belief of seriously reflecting men, that a system which professedly recognizes the Divine Being as the Creator of the world, but practically excludes Him from the government of its affairs, however _theoretically_ different from Atheism, is substantially the same with it.[181] It was against this Epicurean Atheism that Howe contended in his "Living Temple;" an Atheism which acknowledged gods, but "accounted that they were such as between whom and man there could be no conversation,--on _their_ part by providence, on _man's_ by religion." And it was against the same Epicurean Atheism that Cudworth contended in his "Intellectual System of the Universe," when he grappled with the objections which had been urged against the doctrine of Providence and the practice of prayer.[182] It is not wonderful that either Atheists or Pantheists should discard the doctrine of Providence, or deny the efficacy of Prayer.

On their principles, there is no room for the recognition of a supreme intelligent Power governing the world, or of a Will capable of controlling the course of human affairs.[183] But while neither Atheism nor Pantheism could be expected to recognize a presiding Providence, since they equally exclude a personal God, it may well seem strange that any system of Theism, whether natural or revealed, should omit or oppose this fundamental truth.

For the doctrine of Providence may be established, _inductively_, by the very same kind of evidence to which every Theist has recourse in proving the existence and perfections of the Divine Being; and, His existence and perfections being proved, the doctrine of Providence may be inferred, _deductively_, from His character, and from the relations which He sustains towards His creatures, since it cannot be supposed that He who brought them into being, as the products of His own wisdom, goodness, and power, and endowed them with all their various properties for some great and noble end, will ever cease to care for them, or deem them unworthy of His regard.