Quoth RALPH, How great I do not know
We may by being beaten grow;
But none, that see how here we sit,
Will judge us overgrown with wit. 1060
As gifted brethren, preaching by
A carnal hour-glass, do imply,
Illumination can convey
Into them what they have to say,
But not how much; so well enough 1065
Know you to charge, but not draw off:
For who, without a cap and bauble,
Having subdu'd a bear and rabble,
And might with honour have come off
Would put it to a second proof? 1070
A politic exploit, right fit
For Presbyterian zeal and wit.
Quoth HUDIBRAS, That cuckow's tone,
RALPHO, thou always harp'st upon.
When thou at any thing would'st rail, 1075
Thou mak'st Presbytery the scale
To take the height on't, and explain
To what degree it is prophane
Whats'ever will not with (thy what d'ye call)
Thy light jump right, thou call'st synodical; 1080
As if Presbytery were the standard
To size whats'ever's to he slander'd.
Dost not remember how this day,
Thou to my beard wast bold to say,
That thou coud'st prove bear-baiting equal 1085
With synods orthodox and legal?
Do if thou canst; for I deny't,
And dare thee to 't with all thy light.
Quoth RALPHO, Truly that is no
Hard matter for a man to do, 1090
That has but any guts in 's brains,
And cou'd believe it worth his pains;
But since you dare and urge me to it,
You'll find I've light enough to do it.
Synods are mystical bear-gardens, 1095
Where elders, deputies, church-wardens,
And other members of the court,
Manage the Babylonish sport;
For prolocutor, scribe, and bear-ward,
Do differ only in a mere word; 1100
Both are but sev'ral synagogues
Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs:
Both antichristian assemblies,
To mischief bent far as in them lies:
Both stave and tail with fierce contests; 1105
The one with men, the other beasts.
The diff'rence is, the one fights with
The tongue, the other with the teeth;
And that they bait but bears in this,
In th' other, souls and consciences; 1110
Where Saints themselves are brought to stake
For gospel-light, and conscience sake;
Expos'd to Scribes and Presbyters,
Instead of mastive dogs and curs,
Than whom th' have less humanity; 1115
For these at souls of men will fly.
This to the prophet did appear,
Who in a vision saw a bear,
Prefiguring the beastly rage
Of Church-rule in this latter age; 1120
As is demonstrated at full
By him that baited the <t> Pope's Bull.
Bears nat'rally are beasts of prey,
That live by rapine; so do they.
What are their orders, constitutions, 1125
Church-censures, curses, absolutions,
But' sev'ral mystic chains they make,
To tie poor Christians to the stake,
And then set heathen officers,
Instead of dogs, about their ears? 1130
For to prohibit and dispense;
To find out or to make offence;
Of Hell and Heaven to dispose;
To play with souls at fast and loose;
To set what characters they please, 1135
And mulcts on sin or godliness;
Reduce the Church to gospel-order,
By rapine, sacrilege, and murder;
To make Presbytery supreme,
And Kings themselves submit to them; 1140
And force all people, though against
Their consciences, to turn Saints;
Must prove a pretty thriving trade,
When Saints monopolists are made;
When pious frauds, and holy shifts, 1145
Are dispensations and gifts,
Their godliness becomes mere ware,
And ev'ry Synod but a fair.
Synods are whelps of th' Inquisition,
A mungrel breed of like pernicion, 1150
And growing up, became the sires
Of scribes, commissioners, and triers;
Whose bus'ness is, by cunning slight,
To cast a figure for mens' light;
To find, in lines of beard and face, 1155
The physiognomy of grace;
And by the sound and twang of nose,
If all be sound within disclose,
Free from a crack or flaw of sinning,
As men try pipkins by the ringing; 1160
By black caps underlaid with white,
Give certain guess at inward light.
Which serjeants at the gospel wear,
To make the spiritual calling clear;
The handkerchief about the neck 1165
(Canonical cravat of <u> SMECK,
From whom the institution came,
When Church and State they set on flame,
And worn by them as badges then
Of spiritual warfaring men) 1170
Judge rightly if regeneration
Be of the newest cut in fashion.
Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.
Great piety consists in pride; 1175
To rule is to be sanctified:
To domineer, and to controul,
Both o'er the body and the soul,
Is the most perfect discipline
Of church-rule, and by right-divine. 1180
Bell and the Dragon's chaplains were
More moderate than these by far:
For they (poor knaves) were glad to cheat,
To get their wives and children meat;
But these will not be fobb'd off so; 1185
They must have wealth and power too,
Or else with blood and desolation
They'll tear it out o' th' heart o' th' nation.
Sure these themselves from primitive
And Heathen Priesthood do derive, 1190
When butchers were the only Clerks,
Elders and Presbyters of Kirks;
Whose directory was to kill;
And some believe it is so still.
The only diff'rence is, that then 1195
They slaughter'd only beasts, now men.
For then to sacrifice a bullock,
Or now and then a child to Moloch,
They count a vile abomination,
But not to slaughter a whole nation. 1200
Presbytery does but translate
The Papacy to a free state;
A commonwealth of Popery,
Where ev'ry village is a See
As well as Rome, and must maintain 1205
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.
<x> 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 <y> 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.
For if they are the same, by course,
Neither is better, neither worse.
But I deny they are the same, 1275
More than a maggot and I am.
That both are animalia
I grant, but not rationalia:
For though they do agree in kind,
Specific difference we find; 1280
And can no more make bears of these,
Than prove my horse is SOCRATES.
That Synods are bear-gardens too,
Thou dost affirm; but I say no:
And thus I prove it in a word; 1285
Whats'ver assembly's not impow'r'd
To censure, curse, absolve, and ordain,
Can be no Synod: but bear-garden
Has no such pow'r; ergo, 'tis none:
And so thy sophistry's o'erthrown. 1290
But yet we are beside the question
Which thou didst raise the first contest on;
For that was, Whether Bears are better
Than Synod-men? I say, Negatur.
That bears are beasts, and synods men, 1295
Is held by all: they're better then:
For bears and dogs on four legs go,
As beasts, but Synod-men on two.
'Tis true, they all have teeth and nails;
But prove that Synod-men have tails; 1300
Or that a rugged, shaggy fur
Grows o'er the hide of Presbyter;
Or that his snout and spacious ears
Do hold proportion with a bear's.
A bears a savage beast, of all 1305
Most ugly and unnatural
Whelp'd without form, until the dam
Has lick'd it into shape and frame:
But all thy light can ne'er evict,
That ever Synod-man was lick'd; 1310
Or brought to any other fashion,
Than his own will and inclination.
But thou dost further yet in this
Oppugn thyself and sense; that is,
Thou would'st have Presbyters to go 1315
For bears and dogs, and bearwards too;
A strange chimera of beasts and men,
Made up of pieces heterogene;
Such as in nature never met
In eodem subjecto yet. 1320
Thy other arguments are all
Supposures, hypothetical,
That do but beg, and we may chose
Either to grant them, or refuse.
Much thou hast said, which I know when 1325
And where thou stol'st from other men,
Whereby 'tis plain thy Light and Gifts
Are all but plagiary shifts;
And is the same that Ranter said,
Who, arguing with me, broke my head, 1330
And tore a handful of my beard:
The self-same cavils then I heard,
When, b'ing in hot dispute about
This controversy, we fell out
And what thou know'st I answer'd then, 1335
Will serve to answer thee agen.
Quoth RALPHO, Nothing but th' abuse
Of human learning you produce;
Learning, that cobweb of the brain,
Profane, erroneous, and vain; 1340
A trade of knowledge, as replete
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t'incumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit;
Makes Light unactive, dull, and troubled, 1345
Like little DAVID in SAUL's doublet;
A cheat that scholars put upon
Other mens' reason and their own;
A fort of error, to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance, 1350
That renders all the avenues
To truth impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art, perplex'd, and intricate
For nothing goes for sense or light 1355
That will not with old rules jump right:
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
This pagan, heathenish invention
Is good for nothing but contention. 1360
For as, in sword-and-buckler fight,
All blows do on the target light;
So when men argue, the great'st part
O' th' contests falls on terms of art,
Until the fustian stuff be spent, 1365
And then they fall to th' argument.
Quoth HUDIBRAS Friend RALPH, thou hast
Out-run the constable at last:
For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue, 1370
But to the former opposite
And contrary as black to white;
Mere <z> disparata; that concerning
Presbytery; this, human learning;
Two things s'averse, they never yet 1375
But in thy rambling fancy met.
But I shall take a fit occasion
T' evince thee by ratiocination,
Some other time, in place more proper
Than this we're in; therefore let's stop here, 1380
And rest our weary'd bones a-while,
Already tir'd with other toil.