Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/14

 quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice."

And why were these Commandments proclaimed amidst such awful solemnities? The Doctrine of the New Church states the reason, in the following words: "There is not a nation in the whole world, which does not know that it is evil to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to testify falsely, and also that unless these evils were guarded against by laws, no kingdom, republic, or any established society whatever, could exist. Who, then, can suppose that the Israelitish nation was so much more stupid than others, as not to know that those things were evils. It may, then, be wondered at, that these laws, so universally known, should be promulgated in so miraculous a manner from Mount Sinai by Jehovah himself. But this was the reason that they were thus miraculously promulgated, namely, that it might be known, that those laws were not only civil and moral laws, but also Divine laws; and that to act contrary to them, was not only to do evil to the neighbor, that is, to one's fellow-citizens and to society, but that it was also to sin against God. "Wherefore, those laws, by promulgation from Mount Sinai by Jehovah, were made also laws of religion. For whatever Jehovah commands, he commands in order that it may be a part of religion, and thus that it may be done for the sake of salvation."

This point is a very important one, and needs to