p. 16 | Object of Civil Law

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1900

Object of Civil Law

Object of Civil Law.—The object of civil law is to prevent incivility. Civility pertains to outward act. The outward act the civil law can take cognizance of; it can do no more. But as a vital essential of religious doing is that it shall be of the heart and the Spirit, civil law has no right to have anything to do with it at all, unless man, through the guise of religion, seeks to injure his neighbor's life, property, chastity, or reputation. And then civil law rightly lays hold upon him, not because of his religion, but because he has contravened the equal rights of his neighbor.