ENT 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