And yet if we consider these three divine Persons as containing each other in themselves, and essentially one by a mutual consciousness, this pretended contradiction vanishes: for then the Father is the one true God, because the Father has the Son and the Holy Spirit in himself: and the Son may he called the one true God, because the Son has the Father and the Holy Ghost in himself, &c.
Nay, this is to my understanding three Gods, and Sherlock seems to have brought in the material phantom of a thing or substance.
Ib. p. 97.
But if these three distinct Persons are not separated, but essentially united unto one, each of them may be God, and all three but one God: for if these three Persons,—each of whom
, as it is in the Creed, singly by himself, not separately from the other divine Persons, is God and Lord, are essentially united into one, there can be but one God and one Lord; and how each of these persons is God, and all of them but one God, by their mutual consciousness, I have already explained.
—"That is,—if the three Persons are not three;"—so might the Arian answer, unless Sherlock had shown the difference of separate and distinct relatively to mind. "For what other separation can be conceived in mind but distinction? Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:—and if this be called separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons? Can it be conceived other than as the result of imperfection, that is, finiteness?
Ib. p. 98.
Thus each Divine Person is God, and all of them but the same one God; as I explained it before.
O no! asserted it.