Hind: The Panther's breath was ever famed for sweet; But from the Wolf such wishes oft I meet: You learn'd this language from the Blatant Beast, 230 Or rather did not speak, but were possess'd. As for your answer, 'tis but barely urged: You must evince Tradition to be forged; Produce plain proofs: unblemish'd 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 your faces fly, 240 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, 250 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 deceived and damn'd at second-hand. 260 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, 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 awed. And yet they grow upon you every day, While you, to speak the best, are at a stay, 270 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? 280 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.