Courts of Iudicature to be free from all manner of Injustice. [ 1357]
IT is said of that famous Athenian Judicature,* 1.1 where once Dionysius sate as a Judg, and thereupon called (The Areopogite) that they did excell so much in authority, that Kings laid down their Crowns, when they came to sit with them; that they were of such integrity, that they kept their Court and gave judgment in the night, and in the dark, that they might not behold the persons wh•• did speak, least they should be moved thereby, they onely did hear what was said; Here it was that the Pleader must not use any proeme, nor make any Rhetoricall expression to move the affections, so that the People did bear as much reverence to the sentences and decrees promulged there, as they did to their sacred Ora∣cles: Such was the strictness, such the Iustice of that though then Heathen Councill, that it may very well serve as a miroir to look in, as a pattern for the imitation, and as a coppy for the most Christian Courts of Iudicature to write by; For, were but Causes evenly weighed in the ballance of Justice, there would not be so much complaining of the often titing on the one side or the other, as now there is; Were men but Christian Lawyers, they would not be so often looked on as Heathen Orators; Were Laws but justly put in execution, the sword would not so often be born in vain; neither would great ones bear down those that are lesse, nor mighty ones confound the mean, but all would be subservient to the Su∣pream, serviceable and respectfull one to the other.