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,
Those toils were for your own dear self designed,
As well as me; and with the self-same throw,
To catch the quarry* and the vermin too,-
Forgive the slanderous tongues that called 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 dumb.
Dumb you were born indeed; but, thinking long,
The test, it seems, at last has loosed your tongue:
And to explain what your forefathers meant,
By real presence in the sacrament,

After long fencing pushed against a wall,
Your salvo comes, that he's not there at all:
There changed your faith, and what may change
may fall.

Who can believe what varies every day,
Nor ever was, nor will be at a stay?—

*

Quarry signifies, properly, "dead game ready to be cut up by the huntsman," which the French still call faire la curée. But it is often taken, as in this passage, for the game in general. Vermin comprehends such wild animals as are not game, foxes, polecats, and the like.

+ Note II.

The test-oath against popery, in which transubstantiation is formally disavowed. See Note III.

Tortures may force the tongue untruths to tell,
And I ne'er owned myself infallible,

Replied the Panther: grant such presence were,
Yet in your sense I never owned 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.

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 chopped and changed, like winds before a storm.
Thus fear and interest will prevail with some;
For all have not the gift of martyrdom.-

The Panther grinned at this, and thus replied:
That men may err was never yet denied;
But, if that common principle be true,
The canon, dame, is levelled full at you.
But, shunning long disputes, I fain would see
That wonderous wight, Infallibility.

Is he from heaven, this mighty champion, come?
Or lodged 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 assigned;
The doubtful residence no proof can bring
Against the plain existence of the thing.

2

Because philosophers may disagree,
If sight by emission, or reception be,
Shall it be thence inferred, 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 combined; 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 diffused is by the council tied,
As members by their representatives

Obliged 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 perplexed.
If any should in after-times appear,

}

}

New councils must be called, to make the meaning clear;

* There was a dispute among naturalists, whether sight was accomplished per emissionem vel per receptionem specierum. + Dolus versatur in generalibus, was an axiom of the schools. ↑ Note IV.

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 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 whirled
The tortured text about the Christian world;
Each Jehu lashing on with furious force,
That Turk or Jew could not have used it worse;
No matter what dissension leaders make,
Where every private man may save a stake :
Ruled by the scripture and his own advice,
Each has a blind bye-path to Paradise ;
Where, driving in a circle slow or fast,
Opposing sects are sure to meet at last.
A wonderous charity you have in store
For all reformed 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 :

The Catholics interpret our Saviour's promise, "that he would be with the disciples to the end of the world," as applica ble to their own church exclusively.

† Note V.

Himself was to secure his chosen race,

Though reason good for Turks to take the place,
And he allowed to be the better man,
In virtue of his holier Alcoran.

True, said the Panther, I shall ne'er deny
My brethren may be saved 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,
Rejoined 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 tried?
No, sure; to that the rebel would not yield;
Squadrons of texts he marshalled 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 he faced the foe,
And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so?
The good old bishops took a simpler way;
Each asked but what he heard his father

say,

}

By the doctrine of consubstantiation.

Alluding to Lucan's description of the Roman civil war.