not against us, is with us; that is, if the points fundamental and of
substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished, from
points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention.
This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done already. But
if it were done less partially, it would be embraced more generally.

Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model.
Men ought to take heed, of rending God's church, by two kinds of
controversies. The one is, when the matter of the point controverted,
is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled
only by contradiction. For, as it is noted, by one of the fathers,
Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's vesture was of divers
colors; whereupon he saith, In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit;
they be two things, unity and uniformity. The other is, when the matter
of the point controverted, is great, but it is driven to an over-great
subtilty, and obscurity; so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious,
than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding, shall
sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that
those which so differ, mean one thing, and yet they themselves would
never agree. And if it come so to pass, in that distance of judgment,
which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that
knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their
contradictions, intend the same thing; and accepteth of both? The nature
of such controversies is excellently expressed, by St. Paul, in the
warning and precept, that he giveth concerning the same, Devita profanas
vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae. Men create
oppositions, which are not; and put them into new terms, so fixed,
as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect
governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities: the
one, when the peace is grounded, but upon an implicit ignorance; for all
colors will agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced up, upon
a direct admission of contraries, in fundamental points. For truth and
falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay, in the toes of
Nebuchadnezzar's image; they may cleave, but they will not incorporate.

Concerning the means of procuring unity; men must beware, that in the
procuring, or reuniting, of religious unity, they do not dissolve and
deface the law