The Hind and the Panther.
35
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 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?
(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 my self infallible,
Reply'd the Panther; grant such Presence were,
Yet in your sense I never own'd it there.
A real vertue we by faith receive,
And that we in the sacrament believe.
And I ne'er own'd my self infallible,
Reply'd the Panther; grant such Presence were,
Yet in your sense I never own'd it there.
A real vertue we by faith receive,
And that we in the sacrament believe.
Then
