d cruelly vindictive.... Again, if
all suffering, however unavoidably incurred, is to be regarded as a
punishment from the Divine Legislator, to attempt to alleviate or
remove the suffering thus incurred would be to fly in the face of the
Divine authority, by endeavoring to set aside the punishment it had
inflicted; just as it would be an opposition to the authority of human
laws to rescue a prisoner from custody, or deliver a culprit from
punishment."[202]

3. We deem it another radical defect in Mr. Combe's theory of "natural
laws," that he represents the _distinct existence and independent action
of these laws_ as "the key to the Divine government," as the one
principle which explains all apparent irregularities, and accounts
satisfactorily for the casualties and calamities of human life. We
cannot doubt, indeed, either the wisdom or the benevolence of that
constitution of things under which we live, nor dispute the value and
importance of those laws according to which the world is ordinarily
governed. We admit that the suspension of any one of these laws, except
perhaps on some signal occasion of miraculous interposition, would go
far to unsettle and derange the existing economy. But "natural
laws"--whether viewed individually or collectively, and whether
considered as acting independently of each other, or as mutually related
and interdependent--cannot afford of themselves any key to the Divine
government, or any solution of the difficulties of Providence. We must
rise to a far higher platform if we would survey the whole scheme of the
Divine administration: we must consider, not merely _the independent
operation_ of the several classes of "natural laws," but also their
_mutual relations_, as distinct but connected parts of one vast system,
in which the "physical and organic" laws are made subordinate and
subservient to the "moral," under the superintendence of that Supreme
Intelligence which makes the things that are "seen and temporal" to
minister to those things which are "unseen and eternal;" we must
carefully discriminate, as Bishop Butler has done, between the mere
"natural government" which is common to man with the inferior and
irresponsible creation, and the higher "moral government" which is
peculiar to intelligent and accountable agents; and we must seek to know
how far--the reality of both being admitted--the former is auxiliary or
subservient to the latter, and whether, on the whole, the system is
fit