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