d by our ideas, nor expressed by
our language. Yet a secret and incurable discord was cherished, between
those who were most apprehensive of confounding, and those who were
most fearful of separating, the divinity, and the humanity, of Christ.
Impelled by religious frenzy, they fled with adverse haste from
the error which they mutually deemed most destructive of truth and
salvation. On either hand they were anxious to guard, they were jealous
to defend, the union and the distinction of the two natures, and to
invent such forms of speech, such symbols of doctrine, as were least
susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. The poverty of ideas and language
tempted them to ransack art and nature for every possible comparison,
and each comparison mislead their fancy in the explanation of an
incomparable mystery. In the polemic microscope, an atom is enlarged
to a monster, and each party was skilful to exaggerate the absurd or
impious conclusions that might be extorted from the principles of their
adversaries. To escape from each other, they wandered through many
a dark and devious thicket, till they were astonished by the horrid
phantoms of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, who guarded the opposite issues
of the theological labyrinth. As soon as they beheld the twilight of
sense and heresy, they started, measured back their steps, and were
again involved in the gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy. To purge
themselves from the guilt or reproach of damnable error, they
disavowed their consequences, explained their principles, excused their
indiscretions, and unanimously pronounced the sounds of concord and
faith. Yet a latent and almost invisible spark still lurked among the
embers of controversy: by the breath of prejudice and passion, it was
quickly kindled to a mighty flame, and the verbal disputes [19] of the
Oriental sects have shaken the pillars of the church and state.

[Footnote 19: I appeal to the confession of two Oriental prelates,
Gregory Abulpharagius the Jacobite primate of the East, and Elias the
Nestorian metropolitan of Damascus, (see Asseman, Bibliothec. Oriental.
tom. ii. p. 291, tom. iii. p. 514, &c.,) that the Melchites, Jacobites,
Nestorians, &c., agree in the doctrine, and differ only in the
expression. Our most learned and rational divines--Basnage, Le Clerc,
Beausobre, La Croze, Mosheim, Jablonski--are inclined to favor this
charitable judgment; but the zeal of Petavius is loud and angry, and the
moderation of Dupin is co