The true theocracy, however, such as it has actually manifested itself, does not depend on any particular theory, but, as an immediate power and authority from God, is regulated by the divine will alone. It would, therefore, be precipitate, if judging of it, _à priori_, by any arbitrary principle, we should unconditionally pronounce its recurrence to be impossible. Generally, the wonder of a theocracy must be judged of historically in the light in which its own history exhibits it. A mere theory can lead us to no stable determination regarding it. The following seems its relation to the natural history of man, or, even, we may say, to the usual course of external nature. Viewed generally, and in its principle, whatever is, comes from God, as its first cause. The permission of evil, however, whether in the realm of nature or of humanity, when, after their first divine impulse, they are left for a time to pursue their own course of internal development, is clearly something of another and peculiar kind. Peculiar, too, are the higher authorities which exist in the latter, and which are ultimately founded on a divine law and right, and somewhat different is the case with their immediate divine operation and miraculous agency. As, therefore, the course of the world, on the whole, is natural, and whatever transcends it as a singular or rare exception, does but interrupt the regularity of the ordinary laws of nature; so, too, the course of universal history, in ordinary times, is agreeable to man’s nature, as regulated and modified simply by historical circumstances. At most a few theocratical junctures, a few eminent moments of a more divine working and development of power, may be noticed at distant intervals. And these grand and pregnant epochs, in which all the existing relations of the world assume a new and unexpected form, are generally, in the first moment of its triumphant result, or scarcely-hoped-for emancipation, rightly and thankfully regarded and acknowledged as interventions of a higher and a divine agency; though, alas, the enthusiasm of man’s gratitude to God, even when it does take a passing hold on man’s heart, is wont to evaporate, even more rapidly than any other of his ardent feelings.