As I remember, said the sober Hind, Those toils were for your own dear self design'd, As well as me; and with the self-fame throw, To catch the quarry and the vermin too, Forgive the sland'rous tongues that call'd you so. Howe'er you take it now, the common cry Then ran you down for your rank loyalty. Befides, in Popery they thought you nurst, As evil tongues will ever speak the worst, Because some forms, and ceremonies some You kept, and stood in the main question dumb. Dumb you were born indeed; but thinking long The test it feems at last has loos'd your tongue. And to explain what your forefathers meant, By real prefence in the sacrament, After long fencing push'd against a wall, Your falvo comes, that he's not there at all : There chang'd your faith, and what may change
Who can believe what varies every day,
Nor ever was, nor will be at a stay?
Tortures may force the tongue untruths to
And I ne'er own'd myself infallible,
Reply'd the Panther: grant such prefence were,
Yet in your sense I never own'd it there.
A real virtue we by faith receive,
And that we in the sacrament believe.
Then faid the Hind, as you the matter state,
Not only Jesuits can equivocate;
For real, as you now the word expound,
From folid substance dwindles to a sound.
Methinks an Æsop's fable you repeat;
You know who took the shadow for the meat:
Your church's substance thus you change at will,
And yet retain your former figure still.
I freely grant you spoke to save your life;
For then you lay beneath the butcher's knife.
Long time you fought, redoubled battery bore,
But, after all, against yourself you swore;
Your former self: for every hour your form
Is chopp'd and chang'd, like winds before a storm.
Thus fear and interest will prevail with some ;
For all have not the gift of martyrdom.
The Panther grin'd at this, and thus reply'd :
That men may err was never yet deny'd.
But, if that common principle be true,
The cannon, dame, is levell'd full at you.
But, shunning long disputes, I fain would fee
That wond'rous wight Infallibility.
Is he from heaven, this mighty champion, come:
Or lodg'd below in fubterranean Rome?
First, seat him somewhere, and derive his race,
Or else conclude that nothing has no place.
Suppose, tho I disown it, said the Hind,
The certain mansion were not yet afsign'd:
The doubtful refidence no proof can bring
Against the plain existence of the thing.
Because philosophers may disagree,
If fight be emission or reception be,
Shall it be thence inferr'd, I do not fee?
But you require an answer positive,
Which yet, when I demand, you dare not give;
For fallacies in universals live.
I then affirm that this unfailing guide
In pope and general councils must refide;
Both lawful, both combin'd: what one decrees
By numerous votes, the other ratifies:
On this undoubted sense the church relies.
'Tis true, fome doctors in a scantier space,
I mean, in each apart, contract the place.
Some, who to greater length extend the line,
The church's after-acceptation join.
This last circumference appears too wide';
The church diffus'd is by the council ty'd;
As members, by their representatives
Oblig'd to laws, which prince and senate gives.
Thus some contract, and some enlarge the space:
In pope and council who denies the place,
Assisted from above with God's unfailing grace ?
Those canons all the needful points contain;
Their sense so obvious, and their words so plain,
That no difputes about the doubtful text
Have hitherto the laboring world perplex'd.
If any should in after-times appear,
New councils must be call'd, to make the mean
Because in them the power fupreme resides,
And all the promises are to the guides.
This may be taught with found and safe defence :
But mark how sandy is your own pretence,
Who, setting councils, pope and church afide,
Are every man his own presuming guide.
The sacred books, you say, are full and plain,
And every needful point of truth contain :
All who can read interpreters may be :
Thus, tho your several churches disagree,
Yet every faint has to himself alone
The secret of this philofophic stone.
These principles your jarring sects unite,
When differing doctors and disciples fight.
Tho Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, holy chiefs,
Have made a battle royal of beliefs ;
Or like wild horses several ways have whirl'd
The tortur'd text about the christian world;
Each Jehu lashing on with furious force,
That Turk or Jew could not have us'd it worse;
No matter what dissension leaders make,
Where ev'ry private man may save a stake:
Rul'd by the scripture and his own advice,
Each has a blind bye-path to Paradise;
Where driving in a circle flow or fast,
Opposing sects are sure to meet at last.
A wond'rous charity you have in store
For all reform'd to pass the narrow door:
So much, that Mahomet had scarcely more.
For he, kind prophet, was for damning none;
But Christ and Mofes were to fave their own:
Himself was to secure his chofen race,
Tho reason good for Turks to take the place,
And he allow'd to be the better man,
In virtue of his holier Alcoran.
True, faid the Panther, I shall ne'er deny
My brethren may be sav'd as well as I;
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