The correct statement about the theory of combustion is:
The law of conservation of mass provided justification for the theory of combustion.
The law of conservation of mass, established by Antoine Lavoisier in the late 18th century, demonstrated that mass is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions, including combustion, which helped to clarify and support the modern understanding of combustion processes. The phlogiston theory, on the other hand, was a pre-chemical theory that has since been debunked.