(July 10, 1723–February 14, 1780), was an English jurist who deeply influenced the growth of Common Law, jurisprudence and the basis of law in America. In 1758, he was honored by being elected Oxford’s first Vinerian lecturer, and in 1770, he became one of the Judges of the Common Pleas. From 1765 to 1770, Sir William Blackstone published his highly influential work entitled, Commentaries on the Laws of England. These were so universally accepted in America that by 1775 they had sold more copies in America than in England. This work set the foundation for America’s great legal minds including Chief Justice John Marshall.632 When scholars examined nearly 15,000 items written by the Founding Fathers from 1760 to 1805 (including books, newspapers articles, monographs, pamphlets, etc.), it was found that Sir William Blackstone was quoted more than any other author except one.633
James Madison, the “Chief Architect of the Constitution,” endorsed Blackstone, saying:
I very cheerfully express my approbation of the proposed edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries.634
Sir William Blackstone expressed the presuppositional base for law in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765–70:
Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. … And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker’s will … this will of his Maker is called the law of nature.635
Law of Nature. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when He created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when He created man, and endued him with free will to conduct himself in all parts of life, He laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.
Considering the Creator only a Being of infinite power, He was able unquestionably to have prescribed whatever laws He pleased to His creature, man, however unjust or severe. But as He is also a Being of infinite wisdom, He has laid down only such laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things antecedent to any positive precept.
These are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator Himself in all his Dispensations conforms; and which He has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. Such among others, are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to everyone his due; to which three general precepts Justinian has reduced the whole doctrine of law. …
This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God Himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this … 636
Revealed Law. This has given manifold occasion for the interposition of divine providence; which in compassion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation.
The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature as they tend in all their consequences to man’s felicity.
But we are not from thence to conclude that the knowledge of these truths was attainable by reason, in its present corrupted state; since we find that, until they were revealed, they were hid from the wisdom of the ages.
As then the moral precepts of this law are indeed of the same original with those of the law of nature, so their intrinsic obligation is of equal strength and perpetuity. Yet undoubtedly the revealed law is of infinitely more authenticity than that moral system, which is framed by ethical writers, and denominated the natural law.
Because one is the law of nature, expressly declared so to be by God Himself; the other is only what, by the assistance of human reason, we imagine to be that law. If we could be as certain of the latter as we are of the former, both would have an equal authority; but, till then, they can never be put in any competition together.
Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.637
Sir William Blackstone explicated:
Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering contumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land.638
If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government.639
To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once to contradict the revealed Word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament.640
The preservation of Christianity as a national religion is abstracted from its own intrinsic truth, of the utmost consequence to the civil state, which a single instance will sufficiently demonstrate.
The belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining just ideas of the main attributes of the Supreme Being, and a firm persuasion that He superintends and will finally compensate every action in human life (all which are revealed in the doctrines of our Savior, Christ), these are the grand foundations of all judicial oaths, which call God to witness the truth of those facts which perhaps may be only known to Him and the party attesting;
all moral evidences, therefore, all confidence in human veracity, must be weakened by apostasy, and overthrown by total infidelity.
Wherefore, all affronts to Christianity, or endeavors to depreciate its efficacy, in those who have once professed it, are highly deserving of censure.641