Part IV: Unity, Objections, and Conclusion
Numbering note: The 1674 print passes directly from Thesis XXII to Thesis XXIV. The translation preserves the printed sequence. The break is numerical; no portion of the argument is missing at that point.
Thesis XXI
The testimony of these witnesses having been set forth, their unity must now be considered. John saith, “And these three are one.” Because he speaketh of more than one, he intimateth their consent, that their weight and authority may be the greater; and, that he may show their consent to be perfect, he ascendeth unto unity of essence, which is the foundation of unity of will.
Socinus here objecteth. Desiring to evade the force of the argument which we draw hence for the consubstantiality of the persons, he contendeth that this unity must be referred unto unity of consent and testimony only. He seeketh to prove it from John's scope, which is to establish the unity of testimony; from various parallel places of Scripture, in which the same word, he saith, can bear no other sense; and from the opinion of some orthodox writers, who judge that unity of consent is here intended.
We grant not that the Apostle doth not attend unto unity of consent and testimony. What we deny is that he treateth of that only, to the exclusion of unity of essence. Rather, we maintain that unity of essence is here laid down as the foundation of unity of will.
The reasons which move us to believe this are weighty. First, consider John's manner of speech in describing the unity of the heavenly and earthly witnesses. Of the earthly he saith that they are unto one, or into one; but of the heavenly he saith simply that they are one. If the same unity were meant in both places—namely, unity of consent—what reason could there be for the difference of expression? Why did he not prevent the most serious danger which might arise from such speech, lest the faithful should be led into error by imagining a unity of essence in these witnesses where, on that supposition, none was intended? Why doth he not say of both alike, “unto one”?
No sound account can be given of this difference unless some diversity of unity be acknowledged: the earthly witnesses are said to have unity of consent because they conspire unto one; but the heavenly witnesses have, besides unity of testimony, unity of essence.
Nor is the Complutensian reading, which is said to give the phrase “unto one” of the heavenly witnesses, a sufficient answer. The authority of one copy cannot abolish the testimony of all the remaining and most approved copies, collected with great care by Robert Estienne and others, which constantly retain our reading.
Thesis XXII
Secondly, the Apostle's scope proveth the same thing. His purpose is to demonstrate the undoubted faith of the Gospel from the unity of the witnesses who bear testimony unto it. He could not establish that unity and identity of consent more certainly than from unity and identity of essence. For where there is perfect consubstantiality, there must also be perfect concord.
Thirdly, the very designation of these witnesses teacheth the same. When John calleth them witnesses in heaven, he meaneth not only to show that they are heavenly and bear testimony unto Christ from heaven. Otherwise not three only, but many more might be so called, since angels too might in that respect be called witnesses in heaven. He also denoteth that they are divine by nature, as heaven is often used in Scripture for God himself; and therefore at verse 9 he calleth this the witness of God and opposeth it unto the witness of men.
Now, if these three witnesses are divine, they must be one by unity of essence. For there is but one God in number, and nothing is in God which is not God himself.
Fourthly, the conjunction of the witnesses confirmeth the same. Witnesses who are joined together and said to be one in the same manner must have a like reason of unity. But the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are joined together and are said to be one in the same manner. Therefore there must be a like reason of unity in them. Now, by the adversaries' own admission, the Father and the Holy Spirit are one not only in consent but also in essence. Therefore the Father and the Word with the Spirit are one essentially.
Fifthly, the same unity must be understood which Christ elsewhere ascribeth unto himself and the Father: “I and my Father are one.” This is not unity of consent only but unity of essence. The Jews so understood it when they charged him with blasphemy because, being a man, he made himself God. Christ doth not deny their understanding; rather, he confirmeth it by the identity of his works with the Father's: “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him.”
If the Jews had falsely charged him, why did he not reject the vanity of their accusation by showing that they had misunderstood his meaning—that he had spoken not of unity of essence, as they thought, but only of unity of will and consent? Since he doth nothing of this kind, but further confirmeth what he had said, it is evident that his meaning was indeed that which the Jews ascribed unto him.
Thesis XXIV
Yet it must not be concealed that the heretics raise several objections in order to blunt the force of this argument.
First, they say that no more unity of essence can be gathered from the three witnesses being called one than from Paul's saying that Paul and Apollos are one, or from Christ's prayer that believers may be one as the Father is in him and he in the Father, or from Paul's saying that he who is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. No one, they say, would refer these places unto unity of essence.
But who seeth not that the heretics here, according to their custom, commit the fallacy of comparing things most unlike? Though the same words are used, it doth not follow that they are immediately to be taken in the same sense. Words are to be understood according to the subject matter.
Paul and Apollos are rightly said to be one in respect of office, because they bear the same ministry; and in respect of their weakness, because they are nothing of themselves and can do nothing without Christ. But it is plain that they cannot be said to be one in nature, because they are distinct persons who have distinct essences in number.
In the Godhead the matter is otherwise. There distinct persons partake of the same essence in number. This is why, though in human affairs three persons make three men, because every human person hath an essence numerically distinct from the others, yet in divine things three persons make not three gods; for the essence of the divine persons is one and indivisible.
The other place, John xvii. 21, is answered in the same manner. The argument is wrongly drawn from a spiritual and mystical unity, which consisteth in the communion of the Spirit, unto the ineffable unity of the persons of the Trinity. Neither doth the word “as” prove the objection; for it is well known that it doth not always signify equality or identity, but often some analogy or likeness only. Thus God commandeth us to be holy as he is holy; and Christ commandeth us to be perfect and merciful as our heavenly Father is perfect and merciful. Likewise, we are commanded to walk in love as Christ loved us. In all these places an analogy is signified, not a full and absolute equality.
Nor doth the passage from 1 Corinthians vi. 17 press more closely. Paul doth not say that believers are one with God, but that they are one spirit: that is, one in the Spirit, because they partake of one and the same Spirit, who is diffused from the Head unto all the members and worketh in the members that which he wrought in the Head—life, light, holiness, joy, and glory.
Thesis XXV
The heretics add that our principal doctors, Calvin and Beza, expounded the place no otherwise than of unity of consent; therefore, they say, we err in referring it unto anything else.
We answer, first, that even if Calvin and Beza had so expounded the passage, we should not be bound to swear unto their words; for our faith resteth not upon men, but upon God alone and his Word.
Secondly, if their words be weighed, it will readily appear that they do not absolutely and simply deny that unity of essence is involved. They speak comparatively, to show that unity of consent is here more directly signified than unity of essence.
Thus Calvin writeth upon the place: “When he saith that the three are one, this is not referred unto essence, but rather unto consent; as though he said that the Father, his eternal Word, and the Holy Spirit do by a certain harmony jointly approve Christ.” Who doth not see that Calvin speaketh not disjunctively and absolutely, but comparatively? His meaning is that the Father, the Word, and the Spirit are one in essence, the one God in three persons—he had shortly before affirmed that in the one essence of the Godhead three persons are acknowledged—but that in this place they are brought forward primarily, not as one witness in essence, but as three witnesses distinct in person, nevertheless bearing the same testimony concerning Christ.
The interlinear gloss speaketh to the same effect: “These three are one,” that is, one God witnessing the same thing. And if Calvin addeth that both companies of witnesses are called one in the same sense, he doth not mean this absolutely and simply, but with respect unto John's purpose, which is to display the harmony of the heavenly and earthly witnesses concerning the Messiah.
It is therefore most preposterous and unfair that so great a man of God should be represented by some as favouring the Arians. Though he had suffered something human, or had not fully attained the mind of the Holy Spirit in one place or another, it doth not follow that he meant to overthrow the faith of so great a mystery, which elsewhere, and in this very place, he confirmeth by so many solid and invincible arguments.
Beza is of the same mind. In setting forth the unity of consent he doth not deny, but rather presupposeth, unity of essence. He explaineth the words “these three are one” as a most complete agreement, as though the three were one witness; yet what is there in this that favoureth the heretics, and what doth it not rather do to cut off their most pestilent error?
Thesis XXVI
From these things, being thus considered, several arguments arise of themselves from this oracle for the confirmation of the august mystery of which we speak.
First, it is evident that the word Trinity is not altogether unwritten, as the ancient and modern antitrinitarians cry out. Though it doth not occur in the abstract, it occurreth here concretely and equivalently. For what is the Trinity but the unity of these three?
Secondly, the Trinity of persons is plainly gathered. The Apostle numbereth neither more nor fewer than three witnesses in heaven, who are one not only in consent and will, but in nature. Therefore there must be precisely so many, and no more, divine persons.
Thus the most impious and pestilent blasphemy of Servetus is refuted, who would have there to be one person only, designated by three names and called three witnesses because of three distinct manners of witnessing. For who would rightly say of one and the same man, who testifieth concerning a matter and confirmeth his testimony by writing and seals, that he is three witnesses because he hath three manners of testifying?
Besides the Father, therefore, two other witnesses in heaven must be acknowledged as distinct persons, each bearing witness in his own respect. Neither may it be replied that the office of witness doth not immediately signify personality because three earthly witnesses are also set down, though they are not distinguished personally. It is true that from the testimony of the earthly witnesses their personal subsistence cannot be inferred, but only a real distinction. Yet it doth not follow that the case is the same when the heavenly witnesses are named; for here the word “witness” must be taken properly, as it belongeth unto persons only.
For the name “witness” is to be understood in the same manner when it is ascribed unto the three heavenly witnesses as when it is ascribed unto the Father and the Son. The adversaries deny not that it is predicated properly of the Father and the Son, as is most clear from John v. 32 and viii. 16. Therefore it is also taken properly when it is ascribed unto the three witnesses in heaven. This might further be confirmed from Christ's baptism and from our baptism, where mention is made of three distinct persons, in whose name baptism is administered; but that is not our present business.
Thesis XXVII
As the Trinity of persons is evidently gathered from this place, so the consubstantiality of those persons is no less clearly confirmed. The heavenly witnesses are not only called witnesses, who bear the witness of God unto us, but are said to be one. We have already shown that this belongeth not unto unity of consent and will, but unto unity of essence and nature.
Neither is it without mystery that they are called “one,” not “one person.” The latter would denote person; the former nature. For in the Trinity there is another and another—that is, another person and another person—but not another thing and another thing, that is, not another nature and another nature. In the incarnation, by contrast, there is another thing and another thing—two natures—but not another and another, for there is but one person.
Hence Gregory Nazianzen, in his homily on Baptism, admirably expressed the unity of the Trinity and the Trinity of the unity: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish the Three than I am carried back unto the One.”
Thesis XXVIII
Fourthly, the personality of the Holy Spirit is invincibly proved, because he is joined as the third witness unto the two witnesses in heaven, the Father and the Word. Therefore, as the Father and the Word are distinct persons who bear personal testimony unto Christ, so the Spirit, being placed in the same order, must also be a person, and not a thing merely which yieldeth a real testimony.
Moreover, by the Spirit here can be understood neither the gift of the Spirit, which belongeth unto the class of earthly witnesses, nor the virtue and power of the Father; for then he could not be distinguished from the Father as a third witness, seeing that essence and power have one and the same testimony. A third person, distinct from the Father and the Word and bearing witness with them, must therefore be understood: one to whom so many personal acts—of witnessing, comforting, sending, searching, and the like—could not be ascribed unless he were a true and proper person.
Thesis XXIX
Lastly, the necessity of believing this mystery unto salvation is plainly proved. Since these three persons are brought in as bearing witness concerning Christ, no man can believe in Christ who receiveth not their testimony and consequently confesseth them not.
For faith is bound to worship God as he hath revealed himself unto us in the Word; and he who denieth the Son cannot have the Father. Every man seeth that this article is truly fundamental. To search it out is presumption; yet to believe it is piety, and to know it is eternal life, as Bernard wisely said long ago.
Though this mystery hath been revealed much more clearly under the New Testament, yet it cannot be doubted that it was not unknown under the Old, but sufficiently revealed for the consolation of the godly.
What remaineth, then, but that we steadfastly retain the faith of so great a mystery? And since these three persons bear an irrefragable testimony unto Christ, let us take heed that we never reject it through unbelief. Rather, resting in him with the full assurance of faith, let us believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; that believing, we may have life through his name. Amen.
Source note
Translated from Theses XXI–XXIX of Turretin and Pictet, Disputatio textualis de tribus testibus coelestibus ex 1. Jo. V. v. 7 (Geneva, 1674), pp. 19–25. The public-domain witness is held by the Bibliothèque de Genève: https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-73333.