Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/58

42 pleaed, at undry times and in divers manners, to dicover and enforce it’s 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 criptures. Thee precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparion to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their conequences to man’s felicity. But we are not from thence to conclude that the knowlege of thee truths was attainable by reaon, in it’s preent corrupted tate; ince we find that, until they were revealed, they were hid from the widom of ages. As then the moral precepts of this law are indeed of the ame original with thoe of the law of nature, o their intrinic obligation is of equal trength and perpetuity. Yet undoubtedly the revealed law is of infinitely more authenticity than that moral ytem, which is framed by ethical writers, and denominated the natural law. Becaue one is the law of nature, exprely declared o to be by God himelf; the other is only what, by the aitance of human reaon, 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.

thee two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to ay, no human laws hould be uffered to contradict thee. There is, it is true, a great number of indifferent points, in which both the divine law and the natural leave a man at his own liberty; but which are found neceary for the benefit of ociety to be retrained within certain limits. And herein it is that human laws have their greatet force and efficacy; for, with regard to uch points as are not indifferent, human laws are only declaratory of, and act in ubordination to, the former. To intance in the cae of murder: this is exprely forbidden by the divine, and demontrably by the natural law; and from thee prohibitions aries the true unlawfulnes of this crime. Thoe human laws, that annex a punihment to it, do not at all increae it’s moral guilt, or uperadd