London's lamentation, or, A serious discourse concerning the late fiery dispensation that turned our…

The Magistrates eyes are to be always upon causes, and not upon persons. Both the Statues of the Theban Judges and the Statues of the Egyptian Judges were made without hands and without eyes, to intimate to us, that as Judges should have no hands to receive Bribes, so they should have no eyes to see a friend from a foe, or a brother from a stranger in judgment. And it was the Oath of the Heathen Judges, as the Orator relates: Audiam accusatorem, & reum sine affectibus, & person•rum respectione; I will hear the Plaintiff and the Defendant with an equal mind, without affection and respect of persons. In the twelfth Novel of Justinian, you may read of an Oath imposed upon Judges and Justices against inclining or addicting themselves to either party; yea, they put themselves under a deep and bitter execration and curse in case of partiality, imploring God in such language as this: Let me have my part with Judas, and let the Leprosy of Geh•zi cleave to me, and the trembling of Cain come upon me, and whatsoever else may astonish and dismay a man, if I am partial in the administration of justice. The Poet in the (Greek) Epigram taught the silver Axe of justice that was carried before the Roman Magistrates to proclaim, If thou be an offende• let not the silver flatter thee; if an innocent, let not the Axe […] •ight thee. The Athenian Judges judged in the night, when the faces of men could not be seen, that so they might be impartial in judgment My Lord, your impartiality in the administration of justice in that high Orb wherein Divine Providence hath placed you, is one of those great things that hath made you high and honourable in the eyes and hearts of all that are true lovers of impartial justice. Some Writers say, that some Waters in Macedonia being drunk by black sheep, change their fleece into white: Nothing but the pure and impartial administration of justice and judgment can transform black mouthed, black-handed, and black hearted men into white. There is nothing that sweetens, satisfies, and silences all sorts of men like the ¹administration of impartial justice: the want of this brought desolation upon Jerusalem, and the whole Land of Jury, and ⟨image 5⟩upon many other flourishing Kingdoms and Countries, as all