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Orthodox Doctrine (Summary of Christian Divinity)

Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, tr. Pinkerton, 1814

2. Part 3, Section 2: What is the Law?

The divine law is that which points out the difference between good and evil actions.

The law is a prescribed rule, which points out what a man ought to do, and what he ought to avoid. Hence a good action is, that which is conformable to the law; and a bad one, that which is not conformable to it. Good works are otherwise styled virtues, and evil works vices, sins, iniquities. This rule, which points out what are good and what are evil actions, must come from God himself; for God alone, who is from all eternity, can, without error, know real good and real evil. Farther, a man ought to do good and avoid evil, even by the dictates of his conscience; but as God alone can lay obligations upon the consciences of men, therefore all human laws are only binding, in as much as they are conformable to the law of God, and in one way or other have their foundation in it.

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