Publisher's Synopsis
This publication presents Dr John Gill's Dissertion Concerning The Eternal Sonship Of Christ, followed by The Arian Controversy, by Henry Melville Gwatkins Arianism is a Christiological concept that asserts Jesus Christ is the son of God, gotten by the Father, at a pointing time, and he is distinct from the Father, and therefore sub ordinate to the Father Arian teachings were first attributed to Arius (c. AD 256-336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt. This view was rejected by the The Ecumenical First Council of Nicaea of 325 that deemed Arianism to be a heresy. The Arian concept of Christ is based on the belief that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten by God the Father at a moment time. The Arian view still remains today, by groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostalism, and recently put forward by some Particular Baptists in America, Preterists and other groups. The matter has been been disputed, it is between two interpretations. Arianism and those who hold to a Trinitarian view the Christ. The Trinitarian view of Christ is that he is of the same substance and essence of the Father. He is eternal Son of God, the one God, with the Father and the Spirit. He did not become the Son of God at His incarnation as he always was the Son of God, the one God with the Father and the Spirit. This controversy lead to the definition that He was eternally generated by the Father, from all eternity and so always the only begotten Son of God. The concept of the eternal generation of the Son of God has been rejected by some, and in the 18 century defended Dr John Gill, a Particular Baptist minister, from England, and which lead to a further division by some who were its opponents, in the 19 century. They describing this view as "eternal nonsense". In 1860 J.C. Philpot, the editor of the Gospel Standard magazine, defended the teaching of the eternal generation of the Son of God, in his book, "The Eternal Sonship Of The Lord Jesus Christ".