The wretched Panther cries aloud for aid
To church and councils, whom she first betray'd;
No help from fathers or tradition's train:
Those ancient guides she taught us to disdain,
And by that scripture, which she once abus'd
To reformation, stands herself accus'd.
What bills for breach of laws can she prefer,
Expounding which she owns herself may err?
And, after all her winding ways are try'd,
If doubts arise, she slips herself aside,

And leaves the private conscience for the guide.
If then that conscience set th' offender free,
It bars her claim to church authority.
How can she censure, or what crime pretend,
But scripture may be construed to defend?
Ev'n those, whom for rebellion she transmits
To civil power, her doctrine first acquits;
Because no disobedience can ensue,
Where no submission to a judge is due;
Each judging for himself by her consent,
Whom thus absolv'd she sends to punishment.
Suppose the magistrate revenge her cause,
'Tis only for transgressing buman laws.
How answering to its end a church is made,
Whose power is but to counsel and persuade !
O solid rock, on which secure she stands !
Eternal house not built with mortal hands!
O sure defence against th' infernal gate,
A patent during pleasure of the state!

Thus is the Panther neither lov'd nor fear'd,
A mere mock queen of a divided herd;
Whom soon by lawful power she might control,
Herself a part submitted to the whole.
Then, as the Moon who first receives the light
By which she makes our nether regions bright,
So might she shine, reflecting from afar
The rays she borrow'd from a better star;
Big with the beams which from her mother flow,
And reigning o'er the rising tides below:
Now, mixing with a savage crowd, she goes,
And meanly flatters her inveterate foes,
Rul'd while she rules, and losing every hour
Her wretched remnants of precarious power.

Que evening, while the cooler shade she
sought,

Revolving many a melancholy thought,
Alone she walk'd, and look'd around in vain,
With rueful visage, for her vanish'd train:
None of her sylvan subjects made their court;
Levées and couchées pass'd without resort.
So hardly can usurpers manage well
Those whom they first instructed to rebel.
More liberty begets desire of more;
The hunger still increases with the store.
Without respect they brush'd along the wood
Fach in his clan, and, fill'd with loathsome food,
Ask'd no permission to the neighbouring flood.
The Panther, full of inward discontent,
Since they would go, before them wisely went;
Supplying want of power by drinking first,
As if she gave them leave to quench their thirst.
Among the rest, the Hind, with fearful face,
Beheld from far the common watering-place,
Nor durst approach; till with an awful roar
The sovereign Lion bad her fear no more.
Encourag'd thus she brought her younglings
nigh,

Watching the motions of her patron's eye,
And drank a sober draught; the rest amaz'd
Stood mutely still, and on the stranger gaz'd;

'Survey'd her part by part, and sought to find
The ten-horn'd monster in the harmless Hind,
Such as the Wolf and Panther had design'd.
They thought at first they dream'd; for 'twas offence
With them, to question certitude of sense,
Their guide in faith: but nearer when they drew,
And had the faultless object full in view,
Lord, how they all admir'd her heavenly hue!
Some, who before her fellowship disdain'd,
Scarce, and but scarce, from inborn rage restrain'd,
Now frisk'd about her, and old kindred feign'd.
Whether for love or interest, every sect
Of all the savage nation' show'd respect.
The viceroy Panther could not awe the herd;
The more the company, the less they fear'd.
The surly Wolf with secret envy burst,

Yet could not howl; the Hind had seen him first:
But what he durst not speak, the Panther durst.

For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair To ferney heaths, and to their forest lare, She made a mannerly excuse to stay, Proffering the Hind to wait her half the way: That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. With much good will the motion was embrac'd, To chat a while on their adventures pass'd: Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot Her friend and fellow-sufferer in the plot. Yet wondering how of late she grew estrang'd, Her forehead cloudy, and her countenance chang'd, She thought this hour th' occasion would present To learn her secret cause of discontent, Which, well she hop'd, might be with ease redress'd, Considering her a well-bred civil beast, And more a gentlewoman than the rest. After some common talk what rumours ran, The lady of the spotted-muff began.

PART II.

"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;
Th' 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,
Nor trusting Destiny to save your head.
For whate'er promises you have apply'd
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,
"Those toils were for your own dear self design'd,
As well as me; and with the self-same 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
Then ran you down for your rank loyalty.
Besides, 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 dumh.

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 sacrainent,
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?"

And I ne'er own'd myself infallible,"

Reply'd 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."

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.

For real, as you now the word expound,
From solid substance dwindles to a sound.
Methinks an Esop'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 grinn'd at this, and thus reply'd:
"That men may err was never yet deny'd.
But, if that common principle be true,
The 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,
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 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;
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 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,

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
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 condemn our ordination,
Succession, ministerial vocation;

And Luther, more mistaking what he read,
Misjoins the sacred body with the bread:
Yet, lady, still remember I maintain,
The word in needful points is only plain."

"Needless, or needful, I not now contend,
For still you have a loop-hole for a friend,"
Rejoin'd the matron: "but the rule you lay
Has led whole flocks, and leads them still astray,
In weighty points, and full damnation's way.
For did not Arius first, Socinus now,
The Son's eternal Godhead disavow?
And did not these by gospel texts alone
Condemn our doctrine, and maintain their own?
Have not all heretics the same pretence
To plead the scriptures in their own defence?
How did the Nicene council then decide
That strong debate? was it by scripture try'd?
No, sure; to that the rebel would not yield;
Squadrons of texts he marshall'd in the field:
That was but civil war, an equal set,
Where piles with piles, and eagles eagles met.
With texts point-blank and plain be fac'd the foe,
And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so?
The good old bishops took a simpler way;
Each ask'd but what he heard his father say,
Or how he was instructed in his youth,
And by tradition's force upheld the truth."

The Panther smil'd at this ;" And when," said she, "Were those first councils disallow'd by me? Or where did I at sure tradition strike, Provided still it were apostolic ?"

"Friend," said the Hind," you quit your former ground,

Where all your faith you did on scripture found:
Now 'tis tradition join'd with holy writ;
But thus your memory betrays your wit."

"No," said the, Panther; "for in that I view,
When your tradition's forg'd, and when 'tis true.
I set them by the rule, and, as they square,
Or deviate from undoubted doctrine there,
This oral fiction, that old faith declare.

HIND. "The council steer'd, it seems, a different

course;

They try'd the scripture by tradition's force:
But you tradition by the scripture try;
Pursued by sects, from this to that you fly,
Nor dare on one foundation to rely.
The word is then depos'd, and in this view
You rule the scripture, not the scripture you."
Thus said the dame, and, smiling, thus pursu'd:
"I see, tradition then is disallow'd,
When not evine'd by scripture to be true,
And scripture, as interpreted by you.

But here you tread upon unfaithful ground;
Unless you could infallibly expound :
Which you reject as odious popery,

And throw that doctrine back with scorn on me.
Suppose we on things traditive divide,
And both appeal to scripture to decide;
By various texts we both uphold our claim,
Nay, often, ground our titles on the same:
After long labour lost, and time's expense,
Both grant the words, and quarrel for the sense.
Thus all disputes for ever must depend;
For no dumb rule can controversies end.
Thus, when you said, 'tradition must be try'd
By sacred writ,' whose sense yourselves decide,
You said no more, but that yourselves must be
The judges of the scripture sense, not we.
Against our church-tradition you declare,
And yet your clerks would sit in Moses' chair:
At least 'tis prov'd against your argument,
The rule is far from plain, where all dissent."

"If not by scriptures, how can we be sure,"
Reply'd the Panther, "what tradition's pure?
For you may palm upon us new for old:
All, as they say, that glitters is not gold."

| Till when 'tis not sufficient to defame:
An old possession stands, till elder quits the claim.
Then for our interest, which is nam'd alone
To load with envy, we retort your own.
For when traditions in your faces fly,
Resolving not to yield, you must decry.
As, when the cause goes hard, the guilty man
Excepts, and thins his jury all he can;
So, when you stand of other aid bereft,
You to the twelve apostles would be left.
Your friend the Wolf did with more craft provide
To set those toys, traditions, quite aside;
And fathers too, unless when, reason spent,
He cites them but sometimes for ornament.
But, madam Panther, you, though more sincere,
Are not so wise as your adulterer:
The private spirit is a better blind,
Than all the dodging tricks your authors find.
For they, who left the scripture to the crowd,
Each for his own peculiar judge allow'd,
The way to please them was to make them proud
Thus with full sails they ran upon the shelf;
Who could suspect a cozenage from himself?
On his own reason safer 'tis to stand,

Than be deceiv'd, and damn'd at second-hand.
But you, who fathers and traditions takę,
And garble some, and some you quite forsake,
Pretending church-authority to fix,
And yet some grains of private spirit mix,
Are like a mule made up of differing seed,
And that's the reason why you never breed;
At least not propagate your kind abroad,
For home dissenters are by statutes aw'd.
And yet they grow upon you every day,
While you, to speak the best, are at a stay,
For sects, that are extremes, abhor a middle

way.

Like tricks of state, to stop a raging flood,
Or mollify a mad-brain'd senate's mood:
Of all expedients never one was good.
Well may they argue, nor can you deny,
If we must fix on church authority,
Best on the best, the fountain, not the flood;
That must be better still, if this be good.
Shall she command who has herself rebell'd?
Is antichrist by antichrist expell'd?
Did we a lawful tyranny displace,
To set aloft a bastard of the race?
Why all these wars to win the book, if we
Must not interpret for ourselves, but she?
Either be wholly slaves, or wholly free.
For purging fires traditions must not fight;
But they must prove episcopacy's right.
Thus those led horses are from service freed;
You never mount them but in time of need.
Like mercenaries, hir'd for home defence,
They will not serve against their native prince.
Against domestic foes of hierarchy

These are drawn forth, to make fanatics fly;
But, when they see their countrymen at hand,
Marching against them under church-command,
Straight they forsake their colours, and disband."

Thus she, nor could the Panther well enlarge
With weak defence against so strong a charge;
But said: "For what did Christ his word provide,
If still his church must want a living guide?
And if all-saving doctrines are not there,
Or sacred penmen could not make them clear,
From after-ages we should hope in vain

For truths, which men inspir'd could not explain."

"Before the word was written," said the Hind,
"Our Saviour preach'd his faith to human kind:
From his apostles the first age receiv'd
Eternal truth, and what they taught believ'd.
Thus by tradition faith was planted first;
Succeeding flocks succeeding pastors nurs'd.
This was the way our wise Redeemer chose,
(Who sure could all things for the best dispose)
To fence his fold from their encroaching foes.
He could have writ himself, but well foresaw
Th' event would be like that of Moses' law;
Some difference would arise, some doubts remain,
Like those which yet the jarring Jews maintain.
No written laws can be so plain, so pure,
But wit may gloss, and malice may obscure;
Not those indited by his first command,

A prophet grav'd the text, an angel held his hand.
Thus faith was, ere the written word appear'd,
And men believ'd not what they read but heard.
But since th' apostles could not be confin'd
To these, or those, but severally design'd
Their large commission round the world to blow;
To spread their faith, they spread their labours too.
Yet still their absent flock their pains did share;
They hearken'd still, for love produces care.
And as mistakes arose, or discords fell,
Or bold seducers taught them to rebel,
As charity grew cold, or faction hot,
Or long neglect their lessons had forgot,
For all their wants they wisely did provide,
And preaching by epistles was supply'd:
So great physicians cannot all attend,
But some they visit, and to some they send.
Yet all those letters were not writ to all;
Nor first intended but occasional,
Their absent sermons; nor if they contain
All needful doctrines, are those doctrines plain.
Clearness by frequent preaching must be wrought;
They writ but seldom, but they daily taught.
And what one saint has said of holy Paul,
'He darkly writ,' is true apply'd to all.
For this obscurity could Heaven provide
More prudently than by a living guide,
As doubts arose, the difference to decide?
A guide was therefore needful, therefore made;
And, if appointed, sure to be obey'd.

Thus, with due reverence to th' apostles' writ,
By which my sons are taught, to which submit;
I think, those truths, their sacred works contain,
The church alone can certainly explain;
That following ages, leaning on the past,
May rest upon the primitive at last.
Nor would I thence the word no rule infer,
But none without the church-interpreter.
Because, as I have urg'd before, 'tis mute,
And is itself the subject of dispute.
But what th' apostles their successors taught,
They to the next, from them to us is brought,
Th' undoubted sense which is in scripture sought.
From hence the church is arm'd, when errours rise,
To stop their entrance, and prevent surprise;
And, safe entrench'd within, her foes without defies,
By these all festering sores her councils heal,
Which time or has disclos'd, or shall reveal;
For discord cannot end without a last appeal.
Nor can a council national decide,
But with subordination to her guide:
(I wish the cause were on that issue try'd.)
Much less the scripture; for suppose debate
Betwixt pretenders to a fair estate,

Bequeath'd by some legator's last intent;
(Such is our dying Saviour's testament)
The will is prov'd, is open'd, and is read;
The doubtful heirs their differing titles plead:
All vouch the words their interest to maintain,
And each pretends by those his cause is plain.
Shall then the testament award the right?
No, that's the Hungary for which they fight;
The field of battle, subject of debate ;
The thing contended for, the fair estate.
The sense is intricate, 'tis only clear
What vowels and what consonants are there.
Therefore 'tis plain, its meaning must be try'd
Before some judge appointed to decide."

Suppose," ," the fair apostate said, "I grant, The faithful flock some living guide should want, Your arguments an endless chase pursue: Produce this vaunted leader to our view, This mighty Moses of the chosen crew." The dame, who saw her fainting foe retir'd, With force renew'd, to victory aspir'd; And, looking upward to her kindred sky, As once our Saviour own'd his Deity, Pronounc'd his words" she whom ye seek

am I."

Nor less amaz'd this voice the Panther heard,
Than were those Jews to hear a God declar'd.
Then thus the matron modestly renew'd:
"Let all your profits and their sects be view'd,
And see to which of them yourselves think fit
The conduct of your conscience to submit:
Each proselyte would vote his doctor best,
With absolute exclusion to the rest:
Thus would your Polish diet disagree,
And end, as it began, in anarchy:
Yourself the fairest for election stand,
Because you seem crown-general of the land:
But soon against your superstitious lawn
Some presbyterian sabre would be drawn:
In your establish'd laws of sovereignty,
The rest some fundamental flaw would see,
And call rebellion, gospel-liberty.
To church-decrees your articles require
Submission mollify'd, if not entire.
Homage deny'd, to censures you proceed:
But when Curtana will not do the deed,
You lay that pointless clergy-weapon by,
And to the laws, your sword of justice, fly.
Now this your sects the more unkindly take,
Those prying varlets hit the blots you make,
Because some ancient friends of yours declare
Your only rule of faith the scriptures are,
Interpreted by men of judgment sound,
Which every sect will for themselves expound;
Nor think less reverence to their doctors due
For sound interpretation, than to you.
If then, by able heads, are understood
Your brother prophets, who reform'd abroad;
Those able heads expound a wiser way,
That their own sheep their shepherd should obey.
But if you mean yourselves are only sound,
That doctrine turns the Reformation round,
And all the rest are false reformers found;
Because in sundry points you stand alone,
Not in communion join'd with any one;
And therefore must be all the church, or none.
Then, till you have agreed whose judge is best,
Against this forc'd submission they protest:
While sound and soula different sense explains,
Both play at hardhead till they break their brains,