Fierce to her foes, yet fears her force to try,
  Because she wants innate authority;
  For how can she constrain them to obey,
  Who has herself cast off the lawful sway? 
  Rebellion equals all, and those who toil
  In common theft, will share the common spoil. 
  Let her produce the title and the right
  Against her old superiors first to fight;
  If she reform by text, even that’s as plain 460
  For her own rebels to reform again. 
  As long as words a different sense will bear,
  And each may be his own interpreter,
  Our airy faith will no foundation find: 
  The word’s a weathercock for every wind: 
  The Bear, the Fox, the Wolf, by turns prevail;
  The most in power supplies the present gale. 
  The wretched Panther cries aloud for aid
  To Church and Councils, whom she first betray’d;
  No help from Fathers or Tradition’s train:  470
  Those ancient guides she taught us to disdain,
  And, by that Scripture, which she once abused
  To reformation, stands herself accused. 
  What bills for breach of laws can she prefer,
  Expounding which she owns herself may err? 
  And, after all her winding ways are tried,
  If doubts arise, she slips herself aside,
  And leaves the private conscience for the guide. 
  If then that conscience set the offender free,
  It bars her claim to Church authority. 480
  How can she censure, or what crime pretend,
  But Scripture may be construed to defend? 
  Even those, whom for rebellion she transmits 483
  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 absolved she sends to punishment. 
  Suppose the magistrate revenge her cause,
  ’Tis only for transgressing human laws. 490
  How answering to its end a Church is made,
  Whose power is but to counsel and persuade? 
  Oh, solid rock, on which secure she stands! 
  Eternal house, not built with mortal hands! 
  Oh, sure defence against the infernal gate,—­
  A patent during pleasure of the state!

    Thus is the Panther neither loved 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. 500
  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;
  Ruled while she rules, and losing every hour
  Her wretched remnants of precarious power. 510