The question still returns; have these three infinite minds, at once
self-conscious and conscious of each other's consciousness, always the
very same thoughts? If so, this mutual consciousness is unmeaning, or
derivative; and the three do not cease to be three because they are
three sames. If not, then there is Tritheism evidently.
Ib. p. 64.
St. Paul tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 10. 'That the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea the deep things of God'. So that the Holy Spirit knows all
that is in God, even his most deep and secret counsels, which is an
argument that he is very intimate with him; but this is not all: it is
the manner of knowing, which must prove this consciousness of which I
speak: and that the Apostle adds in the next verse, that the Spirit of
God knows all that is in God, just as the spirit of a man knows all
that is in man: that is, not by external revelation or communication
of this knowledge, but by self-consciousness, by an internal
sensation, which is owing to an essential unity. 'For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him; even so
the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.'
It would be interesting, if it were feasible, to point out the epoch at
which the text mode of arguing in polemic controversy became
predominant; I mean by single texts without any modification by the
context. I suspect that it commenced, or rather that it first became the
fashion, under the Dort or systematic theologians, and during the so
called Quinquarticular Controversy.
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