On my belief page I quote a latin maxim:
“Verbo dicam: Si nos servaremus IN necesariis Unitatem, IN non-necessariis Libertatem, IN UTRISQUE Charitatem, optimo certe loco essent res nostrae.”
translated, that is:
In a word, I’ll say it: if we preserve unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and charity in both, our affairs will be in the best position.
In a comment to the site tigger lily asked me:
I like your closing sentence very, very much - who is it by again?
I have heard the phrase used by many people and had to do quite some digging before I could uncover the “original” form (the latin and its translation that quoted on my website). The quote is widely, but wrongly, attributed to St. Augustine.
It was, in fact, originally written in 1627 by Rupertus Meldenius (a German Lutheran scholar) anxious for the peace within the church. Not much is known about Meldenius, but the phrase appears in a tract published around 1627, and quoted by disparate groups ever since.