Misread Passages of Scriptures. Brown James Baldwin
the refusal to pay to Cæsar the tax, be it church-rate or anything else, which he may demand for the support of a spiritual system, which we may not believe to be in accordance with the Divine will. I confess that the teaching of our Lord in these words seems to me to point in precisely the opposite direction. The argument which one often hears is to this effect: Cæsar is intruding into God's province when he demands anything from us for spiritual uses; this is a department with which he has nothing whatever to do, and we are giving him that which is God's if we yield to his claims. God alone has the right to claim anything at our hand for spiritual uses; and we are wronging Him, we are robbing the Lord of what political theologians call His "crown rights," if we give unto Cæsar one farthing for the maintenance of any Church system or systems, or any spiritual operations of any sort, since these are of the things which belong to God alone. The argument of our Lord in these verses points surely the other way. With Him the test of the demand is not the purpose, but the thing demanded. If what is asked has Cæsar's image on it, enough; let him have it; the responsibility of using it rests with him. If Cæsar asks that which has not his image upon it, which he cannot compel before his tribunals or distrain by his officers, such as your judgment, your conscience, and the support of your voice and your hand, obey God rather than man. If you yield to Cæsar, yield because you see that it is right in God's sight, that it is a duty to God to yield to him; if you refuse, refuse because to yield would be wrong in God's sight, and then be prepared to sustain your refusal even unto death.
Do not misunderstand the difficulty of the Jewish rulers, which was a very real one. It was a case of conscience with them. They did not care about the amount of the tribute, that was a small matter; but Cæsar was a Gentile, idolatrous prince. Idolatry was the state religion of the Roman empire. It was a bitter thought to the Jew that an idolater, one capable of setting up his own image in the holy of holies, should rule over him and exact his tribute. Was it not a betrayal of duty to God to consent to it? Was it not right to suffer any extremities rather than yield to the imperial claims? There was a party among the Jews who felt so grievously the degradation and the burden on their consciences, that they were in a chronic state of rebellion against Rome. They were always seeking to foment the differences between their own and the Roman government; and they were prepared to stake their own lives and the life of the nation on their fealty, as they understood fealty, to God alone. It was one of the questions most eagerly debated among them, which they asked the Saviour to solve. A case of conscience, – conscience grieved by being compelled to support a system of government other than that which they believed had been ordained to them of God. Our Lord's solution is most original and striking; and it offers the clearest guidance to us through the multitude of kindred perplexities which cannot fail to arise by reason of the ever varying relations of the secular and spiritual powers in every age of the world. (Matt. xxii. 15-22.) The image on the tribute money settled the matter. This is primâ facie evidence that Cæsar has a right to claim it. The power of putting an image on the money marks it as a thing between you and Cæsar. You accept it and use it in daily life, at Cæsar's hand. That image on the penny, the right of coining money being represented by it, is the symbol of all the order and benediction which flow to you from Cæsar's rule; and Cæsar's right to exact it back again is distinctly a question between you and the earthly monarch, into which you have no right to drag, for the purpose of protest, the name of God. Cæsar is ordained of God to take visible charge of this department, the order of civil society; and he and you must settle between you the fair adjustment of his claims. A piece of money bearing Cæsar's image is no battleground for the rights of God. Pay whatever Cæsar asks for his purposes, no matter what they may be, so long as by using Cæsar's mintage you give the stamp of your acquiescence to his rule; and if his purposes seem to you to be wrong, fight him with nobler things than pennies – with voice and pen, the free utterance of opinion, and, if needs must be, in the last extremity, with swords.
If Cæsar asks your homage to his idol, the bending of your knee, or the acclamation of your voice, the answer is clear, – Thy image and superscription are not here; my knee is for my God, my voice is for my God; and all the powers of the universe cannot bend the one or awaken the other without my will. Here I follow the Divine precedent: "Nebuchadnezzar spake," etc. (Dan. iii. 14-18.) But if Cæsar asks my pennies for any purpose which he comprehends within the aim of his government, let him have them; they clearly belong to his sphere. I scorn to hold back what his force can wring from me the next moment; they are his, the responsibility of taking them is his, and the responsibility of using them is his. If I am not satisfied with his use of them, I have nobler means of protest and influence; or, in the last extremity, I can go forth from his empire and have done with him and his pennies for ever.
This is the principle on which it seems to me right to act in church-rate matters. Suppose that one were living in a neighbourhood in which the church of the district had been built under a special act of parliament, to be paid for by a rate levied on the householders during a term of years. It would be our duty to pay year after year our share of the tax which parliament imposed. The money asked for has Cæsar's image and superscription on it: by using it we consent to Cæsar's sway. We have no right to pick and choose which claims of a government we will honour, and which we will refuse. We get the good of the government as a whole, and we pay its claims as a whole, always endeavouring by moral means to secure that the adjustment shall be righteous and fair. And so it may become a clear duty to pay for the building of a church which we never enter, and whose minister regards our ministry as an unauthorized and mischievous intrusion on his sacred domain. If the Church, by Cæsar's ministry, will have our tribute money, we say, Take it; and if the demand be very harsh or peremptory, we say, Take it, in very scorn. But God forbid that we should ever consent to belong to a Church which can condescend to take tribute by force of the unwilling, and which gives the adversary thereby such strong temptation to blaspheme.
Such 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