This was the new commandment, the seminal idea of the new religion, and Jerusalem was the seed-bed, prepared for it by the long series of antecedent events, where it must germinate first. When that had been done, scions from it might be taken to other localities. But it is plain that, as moral instincts die hard, Jerusalem is also precisely one of the spots in which the new sentiment will meet with the most determined and violent antagonism; nor will it ever find there general reception, or, indeed, so much reception as among other races, where the instinct of repulsion had not been so completely and firmly established. The new sentiment had to be evoked from man’s inner consciousness, as it was acted upon and affected by the new order of things. This could not be done until the authority of this inner consciousness had been recognized. This means a great deal. What it had come to regard as true and good was to be religion, as distinguished from written law, which is imposed by the State, has convenience and expediency for its object, and is limited in its purview by the necessities of its application, and by the ignorance and low sentiment of public opinion. The Christ-enlightened, God-taught, pure conscience is a better and higher and more searching rule of life than any legislation. That would only drag conscience and life down again to the common level. To make that religion would be making Cæsar God: an evil necessity that had, to some extent, inhered in the Old Dispensation. It would kill conscience, which aims higher, goes deeper, and sees farther than written statutes and enactments, however well meant, or wisely drawn. The new religion, therefore, stood aloof from, and placed itself above, all existing legislation, except in the sense of submitting to it, and obeying it as a social and political necessity. But though it submitted itself to, and obeyed, it could not receive, a written code as the rule of life. While, therefore, it recognized the rights and necessities of the kingdoms of this world, it found in man’s conscience the law of a kingdom not of this world. The polity it created was not of them. It was God’s kingdom among men. The kingdoms of the world might at some future time become the kingdoms of God, but at present Cæsar and God were distinct powers, and represented distinctly different applications of the principles of right. Cæsar’s application was partial only, and, moreover, full of corruption; God’s was all-embracing and incorrupt.