[174] DR. CLARKE'S "Letter to Mr. Dodwell," pp. 34, 69, 72. ANDREW BAXTER, "On the Soul," I. 227, 233. [175] Matthew 10: 28. [176] Luke 16: 22; Phil. 1: 23. [177] DR. PRIESTLEY, "Disquisitions," p. 103; "Free Discussion," pp. 66, 237. [178] FLAVEL, "Pneumatologia; or, Treatise of the Soul," I. 290. SIR M. HALE, "Primitive Origination of Mankind," p. 309. [179] _Compare_ Heb. 12: 9; Num. 16: 22; 27: 16; Zech. 12: 1; Luke 23: 43, 46; Acts 7: 59; Eccles. 12: 7; 2 Cor. 5: 8; James 2: 26; Luke 24: 39; John 10: 25; John 5: 24. [180] DR. OLINTHUS GREGORY, "Life of Hall," Works, VI. 26. 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]