DAME, said the Panther, times are mended well,
Since late among the Philistines you fell.
The toils were pitch'd, a spacious tract of ground
With expert huntsmen was encompass'd round;
The enclosure narrow'd; the sagacious power
Of hounds and death drew nearer every hour.
'Tis true, the younger lion 'scap'd the snare,
But all your priestly calves lay struggling there;
As sacrifices on their altars laid;
While you their careful mother wisely fled,
Not trusting destiny to save your head.
For, whate'er promises you have applied
To your unfailing Church, the surer side
Is four fair legs in danger to provide.
And whate'er tales of Peter's chair you tell,
Yet, saving reverence of the miracle,
The better luck was yours to 'scape so well.
As I remember, said the sober Hind, These toils were for your own dear self design'd, As well as me; and with the selfsame throw, To catch the quarry and the vermin too. (Forgive the slanderous tongues that call'd you so.) Howe'er you take it now, the common cry down for your rank loyalty.
Besides, in Popery they thought you nurs'd,
(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 seems at last has loos'd your tongue.
And to explain what your forefathers meant,
By real presence in the sacrament,
After long fencing push'd against a wall,
Your salvo comes, that he's not there at all: There chang'd your faith, and what may change may fall.
Who can believe what varies every day,
Nor ever was, nor will be at a stay?
Tortures may force the tongue untruths to tell, And I ne'er own'd myself infallible,
Replied the Panther: grant such presence 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, said the Hind, as you the matter state,
Not only Jesuits can equivocate;
For real, as you now the word expound,
From solid 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.
602 The Test it seems at last has loos'd your tongue] The Test Act passed in 1672-3, enjoined the abjuration of the real presence in the sacrament. D.
I freely grant you spoke to save your life;
For then you lay beneath the butcher's knife. 625
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 grinn'd at this, and thus replied:
That men may err was never yet denied.
But, if that common principle be true,
That canon, dame, is levell'd full at you.
But, shunning long disputes, I fain would see
That wondrous wight Infallibility.
Is he from heaven, this mighty champion, come?
Or lodg❜d below in subterranean Rome?
First, seat him somewhere, and derive his race, 640
Or else conclude that nothing has no place.
Suppose, (though I disown it) said the Hind,
The certain mansion were not yet assign'd;
The doubtful residence no proof can bring
Against the plain existence of the thing.
Because philosophers may disagree,
If sight by emission or reception be,
Shall it be thence inferr'd, I do not see?
But you require an answer positive,
Which yet, when I demand, you dare not give ; 650 For fallacies in universals live.
I then affirm that this unfailing guide
In Pope and General Councils must reside;
Both lawful, both combin'd: what one decrees
By numerous votes, the other ratifies :
On this undoubted sense the church relies.
'Tis true, some 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 tied;
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 disputes about the doubtful text
Have hitherto the labouring world perplex'd.
If any should in aftertimes appear,
New Councils must be call'd, to make the meaning
Because in them the power supreme resides;
And all the promises are to the guides.
This may be taught with sound and safe defence:
But mark how sandy is your own pretence,
Who, setting Councils, Pope, and Church aside,
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, though your several Churches disagree,
Yet every saint has to himself alone
The secret of this philosophic stone.
These principles your jarring sects unite,
When differing doctors and disciples fight.
Though Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, holy chiefs,
Have made a battle-royal of beliefs;
Or, like wild horses, several ways have whirl'd 690
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 every private man may save a stake:
Rul'd by the Scripture and his own advice,
Each has a blind by-path to Paradise;
Where, driving in a circle, slow or fast,
Opposing sects are sure to meet at last.
A wondrous 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 Moses were to save their own:
Himself was to secure his chosen race,
Though reason good for Turks to take the place,
And he allow'd to be the better man,
In virtue of his holier Alcoran.
True, said the Panther, I shall ne'er deny My brethren may be sav'd as well as I: Though Huguenots contemn our ordination, Succession, ministerial vocation;
And Luther, more mistaking what he read,
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