So too, the Father has a 'logos' with
which he distinguishes the 'Logos';--and the 'Logos' has a 'logos', and
so on: that is to say, there are three several though not severed triune
Gods, each being the same position three times 'realiter positum', as
three guineas from the same mint, supposing them to differ no more than
they appear to us to differ;--but whether a difference wholly and
exclusively numerical is a conceivable notion, except under the
predicament of space and time; whether it be not absurd to affirm it,
where interspace and interval cannot be affirmed without absurdity--this
is the question; or rather it is no question.
Ib. p. 68.
Nor do we divide the substance, but unite these three Persons in one
numerical essence: for we know nothing of the unity of the mind, but
self-consciousness, as I showed before; and therefore as the
self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct
Persons, so the mutual consciousness of all three divine Persons to
each other makes them all but one infinite God: as far as
consciousness reaches, so far the unity of a spirit extends, for we
know no other unity of a mind or spirit, but consciousness.
But this contradicts the preceding paragraph, in which the Father is
self-conscious that he is the Father and not the Son, and the Son that
he is not the Father, and that the Father is not he. Now how can the
Son's being conscious that the Father is conscious that he is not the
Son, constitute a numerical unity? And wherein can such a consciousness
as that attributed to the Son differ from absolute certainty? Is not God
conscious of every thought of man;--and would Sherlock allow me to
deduce the unity of the divine consciousness with the human? Sherlock's
is doubtless a very plain and intelligible account of three Gods in the
most absolute intimacy with each other, so that they are all as one; but
by no means of three persons that are one God.
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