seems to me to be the bearing of this principle on this and kindred questions. It seems to me distinctly to enjoin on us the course which it is constantly quoted as denouncing. The money Cæsar needs, for the carrying on of his government in the best way he can, is the first charge on the property which the order of civil society suffers us to possess and enjoy. God claims none till Cæsar is satisfied; for Cæsar's claim is His ordinance. Having satisfied Cæsar, take counsel with him about the rest.

But these reflections open up many, some of them perplexing, questions, on which this seems to me a good opportunity to offer some brief remark.

1. Does not Christ in this place seem to recognise some divided allegiance—man under two masters, owing duty to Cæsar, owing duty to God? Will he not be puzzled perpetually to determine their limits, and to settle what is secular and what is sacred? and is there not something repugnant to the very essence of Christianity in the idea that man at any moment, in any relation, can have to do with another being than God? Is not God the sole Lord of his being and of his life? What can be Cæsar's, in contradistinction to that which is God's? I think I have learnt from the Scripture, and I am always preaching the doctrine, that God claims the man in his wholeness; that body, soul, and spirit, riches, knowledge, power, and love, all belong to Him; that there is but one empire, one service, one King; that life is simple, simple as the infinite God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength," "and Him only shalt thou serve." "This do, and thou shalt live." What claim can Cæsar have on man then, which is not also God's claim? What tribute can one pay to Cæsar, which is not also paid to God? None, absolutely none. The Lord recognises no divided allegiance; His words rightly understood are in perfect harmony with the doctrine of His own sole and supreme lordship over every thought, every passion, and every possession of man. "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's." Why? Who ordains it? Who has the right to demand it? God. Within the sphere of Cæsar's government, obey him, not because Cæsar can force you, but because God will have you; make it a part of your Divine obedience, to obey wisely and loyally as a subject and a citizen; and consider that Cæsar claims your service within the sphere which belongs to him, as the ordained minister and representative of God. There is no secular and sacred since Christ appeared. It is all sacred. Civil obedience is an ordinance of the Church. The Scripture bears most explicit witness to these principles wherever it touches on the relations of civil society and its institutions. (1 Pet. ii. 13-17; Rom. xiii. 1-7; 1 Tim. ii. 1-4.) It is God's institution. He sustains it; He, through the ruler, claims your tribute; the result, the order and progress of society, is His work. Innocent III. was right, though in a sense of which he little dreamed. The moon has its own relation to the earth; but they have a common relation to the sun. The moon's orbit is included in the earth's orbit; but the sun sways and balances both of them, and there is not a movement of the moon in obeying the inferior earthly attraction which is not also an act of obedience to the superior sphere. So God has set us under rulers, in societies, as a kind of interior province of His kingdom; but our loyalty as subjects, our duty as citizens, are alike part of the one duty which we owe to God. There is no schism in the body of our service, no double authority in our Lord's realm. The two worlds, the two services, the two spheres, are one in Christ. "One is your Master, even Christ." "Thou shalt worship Him, and Him, only shalt thou serve."

2. It is needful to inquire how far this principle of obedience is to carry us.

If the money has Cæsar's image and superscription, let him have it; he has a right to it, and in recognising that right we are fulfilling so far our duty to God. Here is a clear and simple principle: but is it a sufficient guidance? does it provide for all the possible exigencies of social and political life? How about the right of resisting Cæsar, when he rules unrighteously? How about John Hampden's refusal of the ship-money, and the grand and glorious struggle which it inaugurated, by which our liberties were won? This is a very grave and important question, and one which, having voluntarily selected such a subject as this, we have no right to pass by. There is a Divine precedent here. (1 Kings xii. 12-24.) What is it which is ordained of God in government? Not any particular king, nor any particular form or institution, but the good of men in the order of civil society. This it is at which God aims, and to this end kings and institutions are His ministers. The king or institution which may best assure this end is the open question in the settlement of which God demands the concert and co-operation of mankind. Every king, every magistrate, every political institution, has a certain Divine sanction, inasmuch as it is the keystone of the arch which He has built, and under whose sheltering dome we live and work. But a keystone which, instead of securing the arch, threatens its stability, has no Divine sanction longer than for the time during which it can be successfully replaced or repaired. The Divine shield is cast, not around the particular king, but around the society and the civilization of which he is the head. It is only in the unity of the society that the Lord's sanction upholds him; let him mar that unity or distract it, and God passes to the side of those who are seeking to set up a new and real keystone in his room. There is nothing like the duty of passive obedience to tyrants implied in the text, or enjoined in the word of God. "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," while Cæsar is the recognised lord. In those crises of history in which Cæsar has to be weighed in the balance, in which the question has to be tried, Who is king and by what rule shall he reign? godly men have to keep clear before the mind's eye what God means by human society, what He aims at, and to help Him, yes, help Him to secure it. If no Cæsar be worth recognising, or Cæsar be altogether too bad to be borne, then refuse his tribute, resist his myrmidons, draw the sword of the Lord and of Gideon to strike for deliverance. The Lord is the Cæsar of such an hour; the Captain of the Lord's host, His sword drawn in His hand as at Jericho, is in these times of revolution busy among men. They best honour Cæsar and serve Christ in such hours, who have the clearest eye for the good of the commonwealth, and who prepare the way for the reign of a Cæsar who, like David, shall rule according to the will of God. The sacred sense of the obligations of a subject or a citizen which those cherish, who have learnt from Christ "by whom kings reign and princes decree judgment," and who know that obedience to the powers that he is a form of obedience to God, makes them patient, beyond the measure of mere political patience, of the weaknesses, follies, and sins of the men who occupy the world's high places; while it makes them stern and firm as death when God has pronounced the sentence of deposition, and has bared the avenging sword and committed it to their hands. These are the men who, like Cromwell, do their work with a terrible force and completeness, and who read lessons in God's name to Cæsars, which remain doctrinal through all time.

3. Surely our Saviour intends us to understand how little money, or anything with Cæsar's image and superscription upon it, can do to make or to mar the fortunes of God's kingdom, which spreads and rules like the dawn, like the moisture in the south wind, like the blush of spring, like the splendour of