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.
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
* By the doctrine of consubstantiation.
+ Alluding to Lucan's description of the Roman civil war.
Or how he was instructed in his youth,
And by tradition's force upheld the truth.
The Panther smiled at this;-And when, said she, Were those first councils disallowed 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 joined with holy writ; But thus your memory betrays your wit.
No, said the Panther; for in that I view, When your tradition's forged, 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 steered, it seems, a different
They tried 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 deposed, and in this view,
You rule the scripture, not the scripture you.
Thus said the dame, and, smiling, thus pursued:
I see, tradition then is disallowed,
When not evinced 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,
Aid both appeal to scripture to decide;
By various texts we both uphold our claim,
Nay, often, ground our titles on the same:
+ See Note XIV. Part I. page 156.
After long labour lost, and time's expence,
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 tried
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 proved against your argument,
The rule is far from plain, where all dissent.-
If not by scriptures, how can we be sure,
Replied the Panther, what tradition's pure?
For you may palm upon us new for old;
All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold.
How but by following her, replied the dame,
To whom derived from sire to son they came;
Where every age does on another move,
And trusts no farther than the next above;
Where all the rounds like Jacob's ladder rise,
The lowest hid in earth, the topmost in the skies?
Sternly the savage did her answer mark,
Her glowing eye-balls glittering in the dark,
And said but this:-Since lucre was your trade,
Succeeding times such dreadful gaps have made,
'Tis dangerous climbing: To your sons and you
I leave the ladder, and its omen too. *
Hind. The Panther's breath was ever famed for sweet;
But from the Wolf such wishes oft I meet.
You learned this language from the Blatant Beast, †
Or rather did not speak, but were possessed.
+ By the Biatant Beast, we are generally to understand slander; see Spenser's Legend of Courtesy. But it is here taken for the Wolf, or Presbyterian clergy, whose violent declamations against the church of Rome filled up many sermons.
As for your answer, 'tis but barely urged:
You must evince tradition to be forged;
Produce plain proofs; unblemished authors use
As ancient as those ages they accuse;
'Till when, 'tis not sufficient to defame;
An old possession stands, till elder quits the claim.
Then for our interest, which is named alone
To load with envy, we retort your own;
For, when traditions in
Rosolving 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 allowed;
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 deceived and damned at second-hand.
But you, who fathers and traditions take,
And garble some, and some you quite forsake,
Pretending church-authority to fix,
And yet some grains of private spirit mix,
The Presbyterian church utterly rejects traditions, and ap
peals to the scripture as the sole rule of faith.
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