Eversley, 1869. Chester Cathedral, 1872.

Matthew xxii. 21. "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."

Many a sermon has been preached, and many a pamphlet written, on this
text, and (as too often has happened to Holy Scripture), it has been made
to mean the most opposite doctrines, and twisted in every direction, to
suit men's opinions and superstitions. Some have found in it a command
to obey tyrants, invaders, any and every government, just or unjust.
Others have found in it rules for drawing a line between the authority of
the State and of the Church, i.e., between what the Government have a
right to command, and what the Clergy have a right to demand; and many
more matters have they fancied that they discovered in the text which I
do not believe are in it at all.

For to understand the original question--Is it lawful to pay tribute to
Caesar or no? we must imagine to ourselves a state of things in Judea
utterly different, thank God, from anything which has been in these
realms for now eight hundred years. The Caesar, or Emperor of Rome, had
obtained by conquest an authority over the Jews very like that which we
have over the Hindoos in India. And what was working in the mind of the
Jews was very like that which was working in the minds of the Hindoos in
the Sepoy Rebellion--whether it was not a sacred and religious duty to
rise against their conquerors and drive them out. We know from the New
Testament that both our Lord and His apostles again and again warned them
not to rebel, warned them that they would not succeed: but ruin
themselves thereby; for that those who took the sword would perish by the