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Alexandria And Constantinople. -- St. Cyril And Nestorius. -- Third General Council Of Ephesus. -- Heresy Of Eutyches. -- Fourth General Council Of Chalcedon. -- Civil And Ecclesiastical Discord. -- Intolerance Of Justinian. -- The Three Chapters. -- The Monothelite Controversy. -- State Of The Oriental Sects: -- I. The Nestorians. -- II. The Jacobites. -- III. The Maronites. -- IV. The Armenians. -- V. The Copts And Abyssinians. After the extinction of paganism, the Christians in peace and piety might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the principle of discord was alive in their bosom, and they were more solicitous to explore the nature, than to practice the laws, of their founder. I have already observed, that the disputes of the Trinity were succeeded by those of the Incarnation; alike scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to the state, still more minute in their origin, still more durable in their effects. It is my design to comprise in the present chapter a religious war of two hundred and fifty years, to represent the ecclesiastical and political schism of the Oriental sects, and to introduce their clamorous or sanguinary contests, by a modest inquiry into the doctrines of the primitive church. I. A laudable regard for the honor of the first proselyte has countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites, or at least the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites. Their churches have disappeared, their books are obliterated: their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and the softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the zeal or prudence