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, 210
  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, 220
  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 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?