It is, I confess, not a little surprising, that the whole Christian world should be put into such a flame upon account of a dispute of so very abstruse and metaphysical a nature, as this really was in the course and management of it. Alexander’s doctrine, as Arius represents it in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia,[83] was this: “God is always, and the Son always. The same time the Father, the same time the Son. The Son co-exists with God unbegottenly, being ever begotten, being unbegottenly begotten. That God was not before the Son, no not in conception, or the least point of time, he being ever God, ever a Son: for the Son is out of God himself.” Nothing could be more inexcusable, than the tearing the churches in pieces upon account of such high and subtle points as these, except the conduct of Arius, who on the other hand asserted, as Alexander, his bishop, in his letter to the bishop of Constantinople,[84] tells us, “that there was a time when there was no Son of God, and that he who before was not, afterwards existed; being made, whensoever he was made, just as any man whatsoever; and that therefore he was of a mutable nature, and equally receptive of vice and virtue,” and other things of the like kind. If these were the things taught, and publicly avowed by Alexander and Arius, as each represents the other’s principles, I persuade myself, that every sober man will think they both deserved censure, for thus leaving the plain account of scripture, introducing terms of their own invention into a doctrine of pure revelation, and at last censuring and writing one against another, and dividing the whole church of Christ upon account of them. ----- Footnote 83: Theod. E. H. l. 1. c. 5. Footnote 84: Id. l. 1. c. 4. -----