A Tithe-pig Metropolitan;
Where ev’ry Presbyter and Deacon
Commands the keys for cheese and bacon;
And ev’ry hamlet’s governed
By’s Holiness, the Church’s Head; 1210
More haughty and severe in’s place,
Than Gregory or Boniface. 
Such Church must (surely) be a monster
With many heads:  for if we conster
What in th’ Apocalypse we find, 1215
According to th’ Apostle’s mind,
’Tis that the Whore of Babylon
With many heads did ride upon;
Which heads denote the sinful tribe
Of Deacon, Priest, Lay-Elder, Scribe. 1220

Lay-Elder, Simeon to Levi,
Whose little finger is as heavy
As loins of patriarchs, prince-prelate,
And bishop-secular.  This zealot
Is of a mungrel, diverse kind; 1225
Cleric before, and lay behind;
A lawless linsie-woolsie brother,
Half of one order, half another;
A creature of amphibious nature;
On land a beast, a fish in water; 1230
That always preys on grace or sin;
A sheep without, a wolf within. 
This fierce inquisitor has chief
Dominion over men’s belief
And manners:  can pronounce a Saint 1235
Idolatrous or ignorant,
When superciliously he sifts
Through coarsest boulter others’ gifts;
For all men live and judge amiss,
Whose talents jump not just with his. 1240
He’ll lay on gifts with hands, and place
On dullest noddle Light and Grace,
The manufacture of the Kirk. 
Those pastors are but th’ handy-work
Of his mechanic paws, instilling 1245
Divinity in them by feeling;
From whence they start up Chosen Vessels,
Made by contact, as men get meazles.
So Cardinals, they say, do grope
At th’ other end the new-made Pope. 1250

Hold, hold, quoth Hudibras; soft fire,
They say, does make sweet malt.  Good Squire,
Festina lente, not too fast;
For haste (the proverb says) makes waste. 
The quirks and cavils thou dost make 1255
Are false, and built upon mistake: 
And I shall bring you, with your pack
Of fallacies, t’ elenchi back;
And put your arguments in mood
And figure to be understood. 1260
I’ll force you, by right ratiocination,
To leave your vitilitigation,
And make you keep to th’ question close,
And argue dialecticos.

The question then, to state it first, 1265
Is, Which is better, or which worst,
Synods or Bears?  Bears I avow
To be the worst, and Synods thou. 
But, to make good th’ assertion,
Thou say’st th’ are really all one. 1270
If so, not worst; for if th’ are idem
Why then, tantundem dat tantidem.