and had become a Roman province. Caesar was only
another name for the Roman emperor who then
swayed a scepter over the civilized world. His juris-
diction over the Jews had been acquired by conquest,
and yet Jesus enjoins obedience to his authority in
the clearest and most emphatic language. Obedience,
then, to Caesar was obedience to God (save and ex-
cept in those cases in which the laws of Caesar might
be in derogation of the Divine law), and to resist the
authority of Caesar was to resist the authority of
God himself-for He has ordained political govern-
ments, and clothed them with the high sanction of His
authority. Jesus, therefore, in His answer to the
chief priests and scribes, only enjoins upon them
duties which had been always binding upon them from
the very relation which they sustained to Caesar and
to God. To the one as the ruler of the Roman empire,
and to the other as the great ruler of the universe.
  If, then, the obligation of the Jew to submit to the
government of Caesar was thus imperative, though
his authority had been acquired by conquest over the
chosen people of God, how much stronger is the ob-
ligation of Christians to submit to the government
of the United States, instituted by the American
people themselves, for the preservation of the great
heritage of freedom for themselves and posterity, in
all time to come! and how dreadful the sin committed
by them against God and the American people, in
raising their arms and aiding and abetting in the



7



ADDRB8S.