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Orthodox Doctrine (Summary of Christian Divinity)
Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, tr. Pinkerton, 1814
Part 3, Section 3: The Law Contained in the Ten Commandments Which God Gave to Moses
The law of God is written on the heart of every man; and it is also contained in the ten commandments which God gave to Moses; and which are the following. Exod. xx.
1. I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
Every man has the law engraven upon his heart, that is, the power of distinguishing good from evil. Thus, for example, let a man be ever so ignorant, he yet knows that it is good to fear God, and call upon him for help: he knows also that it is praise-worthy to honour his parents, to be grateful to his benefactors, and not to offend any one. Neither is he ignorant that to blaspheme the name of God, and to do injustice to his neighbour, is evil; for this is impressed upon his mind, “that he ought not to do that to his neighbour which he would not desire to be done to himself.” Now, this law is called the law of nature, or the innate law; and our reasonings, when conducted according to this law, are called conscience, which imparts joy to the soul when it does good, and reproaches it for doing evil: thus, joy is the natural and inevitable reward of virtue, and remorse the natural punishment of vice. The apostle writes of this law to the Romans, ii. 14. “For when the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the works of the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean-while accusing or else excusing one another.”
The law of nature, with its interpretation, is summed up in the ten words or commandments which God gave to Moses. It is evident, from sacred history, that God chose Israel, or the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, to be his own peculiar people, and by governing them in a peculiar manner, desired to shew his purposes to the world at large. He gave them the law through Moses, his chosen, which was of a threefold nature; ceremonial, judaical, and moral.
The ceremonial law referred to the holy rites and ordinances of the Jewish church, which were types and prefigurations of the blessings of the gospel; hence every one may clearly see, that, on the appearance of the Saviour, the whole ceremonial law naturally became abrogated.
The judaical law prescribed rules according to which the Jewish civil concerns were to be managed. This law was binding only upon the nation of the Jews.
The moral law contains our duty to God, to our neighbour, and to ourselves. And this law is eternal and unchangeable, because it binds all men for ever to fulfil its demands. This written moral law is a clear copy of the law of nature; because there is not one rule contained in it, of the truth of which a man’s conscience does not assure him. And in order to understand what influenced God to commit the moral law to writing, we need only to keep in remembrance the miserable and corrupt state into which sin has thrown mankind. For we have seen, that man, unenlightened by the blessings of the gospel, has but a dark idea of God and of virtue; and that, in consequence of his natural propensity to evil, he often excuses his own faults, and not unfrequently covers an evil disposition with fair speeches, and a good disposition with evil ones: thus, for instance, he calls meekness, cowardice; piety, superstition; and inconsiderate rashness, magnanimity. On this account, God, in order to prevent the false interpretations of men, was pleased to make known his own law in writing, that in it every one might for ever behold, as in a glass, what he ought to do, and what to avoid.