These precepts are the civil laws of justice in all the
kingdoms of the earth; for without them no kingdom could subsist. But
some are influenced in the practice of them by fear of the penalties of
the law, some by civil obedience, and some also by religion; these last
are saved, because in such case God is in them; and every one, in whom
God is, is saved. Who does not see, that among the laws given to the
sons of Israel, after they had left Egypt, were those which forbid
murder, adultery, theft, and false witness, since without those laws
their communion or society could not subsist? and yet these laws were
promulgated by Jehovah God upon Mount Sinai with a stupendous miracle:
but the cause of their being so promulgated was, that they might be also
laws of religion, and thus that the people might practise them not only
for the sake of the good of society, but also for the sake of God, and
that when they practised them from a religious notion for the sake of
God, they might be saved. From these considerations it may appear, that
the pagans, who acknowledge a God, and live according to the civil laws
of justice, are saved; since it is not their fault that they know
nothing of the Lord, consequently nothing of the chastity of the
marriage with one wife.
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