He was no moral anarchist, setting men free from all external regulation to follow the guidance of impulse. While relaxing the stringency of ceremonial observance, He claimed for the moral law a more absolute authority than it had claimed for itself. In regard to marriage, oaths, the duty of forgiveness, He swept away the qualifications of the older law as concessions to an imperfectly developed moral consciousness. The “inwardness” of the teaching of Jesus was balanced by the recognition of an absolute