Replies

No more repect for the truth is there to be found than sworn testimony of witnesses. And that is what the Law is -- there is no law greater than Holy Scripture, properly understood.

See Blackstone for example (Source: Yale Law's Avalon Project, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/blackstone/bk4ch4.htm):

All crimes ought therefore to be eftimated merely according to the mifchiefs which they produce in civil fociety: and, of confequence, private vices, or the breach of mere abfolute duties, which man is bound to perform confidered only as an individual, are not, cannot be, the object of any municipal law ; any farther than as by their evil example, or other pernicious effeccts, they may prejudice the community, and thereby become a fpecies of public crimes. Thus the vice of drunkennefs, if committed privately and alone, is beyond the knowlege and of courfe beyond the rach of human tribunals : but if committed publicly, in the face of the world, it's evil example makes it liable to temporal cenfures. The vice of lying, which confifts (abftractedly taken) in a crimanal violation of truth, and therefore in any fhape derogatory from found morlity, is not however taken notice of by our law, unlefs it carries with it fome public inconvenience, as fpreading falfe news ; or fome focial injury, as flander and malicious profecution, for which a private recompence is given. And yet drunkennefs and lying are in foro confcientiae as thoroughly criminal when they are not, as when they are, attended with public inconvenience. The only difference is, that both public and private vices are fubject to the vengeance of eternal juftice ; and public vices are befides liable to the temporal punifhments of human tribunals.
ON the other hand, there are fome mifdemefnors, which are punifhed by the cunicipal law, that are in themfelves nothing criminal, but are made fo by the pofitive conftitutions of the ftate for public convenience. Such as poaching, exportation of wool, and the like. Thefe are naturally no offences at all ; but their whole criminality confifts in their difobedience to the fupreme power, which has an undoubted right for the wellbeing and peace of the community to make fome things unlawful which were in themfelves indifferent. Upon the whole therefore, though part of the offences to be enumerated in the following fheets are againft [1] the revealed law of God, others againft [2] the law of nature, and fome are [3] offences againft neither ; yet in a treatife of municipal law we muft confider them all as derving their particular guilt, here punifhable, from the law of man.
HAVING premifed this caution, I fhall next proceed to diftribute the feveral offences, which are either directly or by confequence injurious to civil fociety, and therefore punifhabel by the laws of England, under the following general heads : firft, thofe which are more immediately injurious to God and his holy religion ; fecondly, fuch as violate and tranfgrefs the law of nations ; thirdly, fuch as more efpecially affect the fovereign executive power of the ftate, or the king and his government ; fourthly, fuch as more directly infringe the rights of the public or common wealth ; and, laftly, fuch as derogate from thofe rights and duties, which are owing to particular individuals, and in the prefervation and vindication of which community is deeply interefted.
FIRST then, fuch crimes and mifdemefnors, as more immediately offend Almighty God, by openly tranfgreffing the precepts of religion either natural or revealed ; and mediately, by their bad example and confequence, the law of fociety alfo ; which conftitutes that guilt in the action, which human tribunals are to cenfure.

Blackstone arguably most the foremost legal commentator on the law as our Founders understood it -- they learned from Blackstone.