That you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the conversation of Israel, and strangers to the testament, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world.
Tertullian
It shows that it is the duty of one who, already living in marriage with an unbelieving woman, has presently been by the grace of God converted, to continue with his wife; for this reason, to be sure, in order that no one, after attaining to faith, should think that he must turn away from a woman who is now in some sense an "alien" and "stranger." Accordingly he subjoins withal a reason, that "we are called in peace unto the Lord God; "and that "the unbeliever may, through the use of matrimony, be gained by the believer.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.