This was, in fact, the state of this controversy. And did not the emperor Constantine give a just character of this debate, when he declared the occasion of the difference to be very trifling; and that their quarrels arose from an idle itch of disputation, since they did not contend about any essential doctrine of the gospel? could these hard words and inexplicable points justify the clergy in their intemperate zeal, and in their treating each other with the rancour and bitterness of the most implacable enemies? What hath the doctrine of real godliness, what hath the church of God to do with these debates? Hath the salvation of men’s souls, and the practice of virtue, any dependance upon men’s receiving unscriptural words, in which they cannot believe, because they cannot understand them; and which, those who first introduced them, were not able to explain? If I know my own heart, I would be far from giving up any plain and important doctrine of the gospel. But will any man coolly and soberly affirm, that nice and intricate questions, that depend upon metaphysical distinctions, and run so high as the most minute supposeable atom or point of time, can be either plain or important doctrines of the gospel? Oh Jesus! if thou be “the Son of the everlasting God, the brightness of thy Father’s glory, and the express image of his person;” if thou art the most perfect resemblance of his all-perfect goodness, that kind benefactor, that God-like friend to the human race, which the faithful records of thy life declare thee to be; how can I believe the essential doctrines of thy gospel to be thus wrapped up in darkness? or, that the salvation of that church, “which thou hast purchased with thy blood,” depends on such mysterious and inexplicable conditions? If thy gospel represents thee right, surely thou must be better pleased with the humble, peaceable christian, who when honestly searching into the glories of thy nature, and willing to give thee all the adoration thy great Father hath ordered him to pay thee, falls into some errors, as the consequence of human weakness; than with that imperious and tyrannical disciple, who divides thy members, tears the bowels of thy church, and spreads confusion and strife throughout thy followers and friends, even for the sake of truths that lie remote from men’s understanding, and in which thou hast not thought proper to make the full, the plain decision. If truth is not to be given up for the sake of peace, I am sure peace is not to be sacrificed for the sake of such truths; and if the gospel is a rule worthy our regard, the clergy of those times can never be excused for the contentions they raised, and the miseries they occasioned in the christian world, upon account of them.