was, nor will be at a stay?

Tortures may force the tongue untruths to tell,
And I ne'er own'd myself infallible,
Replied the Panther: grant such presence were, 40
Yet in your sense I never own'd it there.
A real virtue we by faith receive,
And that we in the sacrament believe.
Then, said the Hind, as you the matter state,
Not only Jesuits can equivocate;
For real, as you now the word expound,
From solid substance dwindles to a sound.
Methinks an AEsop's fable you repeat;
You know who took the shadow for the meat:
Your Church's substance thus you change at will, 50
And yet retain your former figure still.
I freely grant you spoke to save your life;
For then you lay beneath the butcher's knife.
Long time you fought, redoubled battery bore,
But, after all, against yourself you swore;
Your former self: for every hour your form
Is chopp'd and changed, like winds before a storm.
Thus fear and interest will prevail with some;
For all have not the gift of martyrdom.

The Panther grinn'd at this, and thus replied: 60
That men may err was never yet denied.
But, if that common principle be true,
The canon, dame, is levell'd full at you.
But, shunning long disputes, I fain would see
That wondrous wight Infallibility.
Is he from Heaven, this mighty champion, come;
Or lodged below in subterranean Rome?
First, seat him somewhere, and derive his race,
Or else conclude that nothing has no place.

Suppose (though I disown it), said the Hind, 70
The certain mansion were not yet assign'd;
The doubtful residence no proof can bring
Against the plain existence of the thing.
Because philosophers may disagree
If sight by emission or reception be,
Shall it be thence inferr'd, I do not see?
But you require an answer positive,
Which yet, when I demand, you dare not give;
For fallacies in universals live.
I then affirm that this unfailing guide 80
In Pope and General Councils must reside;
Both lawful, both combined: what one decrees
By numerous votes, the other ratifies:
On this undoubted sense the Church relies.
'Tis true, some doctors in a scantier space,
I mean, in each apart, contract the place.
Some, who to greater length extend the line,
The Church's after-acceptation join.
This last circumference appears too