Chapter VI:
CHAPTER VI: WHICH CONTAINS THE THIRD ARGUMENT DRAWN FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT TO AFFIRM THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY
[The third argument from the New Testament: John 14:16, “He will give another Paraclete.]”
§ 103. We take our third principal foundation from John 14:16[–17]: “I shall ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth.” We use this passage especially to prove the personality of the Holy Spirit and the deity of the Son. And when both these have been proved legitimately, the Photinians [must] concede that the trinity in the Deity is proved. The personality of the Holy Spirit is clearly concluded from this passage, for not only is He distinguished from the Father and the Son, but He is even called “another Paraclete.”
Thus we conclude: Whoever is distinguished from the Father and the Son in such a way that He is called “another Paraclete,” He is distinguished from them with respect to either essence or person. The Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Father and the Son in such a way that He is called “another Paraclete.” Therefore He is distinguished from them with respect to either essence or person. We cannot say the former because by this logic the Holy Spirit would be another God, which cannot be, because Scripture bears clear witness that there is one God and denies that there is another God besides and outside of the Father. Therefore the latter remains: that He is distinguished from the Father and the Son with regard to His person. From this it follows that the divine essence is one but that there are three distinct persons in it.
In addition, parallel passages can be compared with this passage. John 14:26: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things.” (1) Here the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Father and the Son. (2) The neuter 
[“the Spirit”] is later rendered with the masculine 
[“he”], and when this disagreement of genders is used to refer to personal actions, it always declares a person. (Cf. Gen. 3:15; Matt. 28:19; Gal. 3:16; Eph. 1:14; Col. 2:19; etc.) (3) Activity proper to a person is attributed to the Holy Spirit—that He will teach the apostles all things and will remind them of all the things that Christ said. John 15:26: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, 
He will testify of Me.” Here we not only find expressed the distinction from the Father and the Son, the change of gender, and the clear mention of the personal activity of bearing witness, but there is also expressed the personal property through which the Holy Spirit is distinguished internally [
] from the Father and the Son, namely, the eternal proceeding. Those things that are denied to the Father are attributed to the Holy Spirit, for it says the Holy Spirit “will come” after the ascension of Christ, which cannot be said of the Father. It says that the Holy Spirit “is going to be sent by the Father” and that He “proceeds from the Father.” Therefore He is distinct from the Father not with regard to essence, as is evident; therefore it is with regard to person.
Thus we have proved the first, namely, that the Holy Spirit is a person. The latter, namely, the deity of the Son, we conclude from this passage as follows: Whoever is not true God cannot send the Holy Spirit. Christ sends the Holy Spirit. Therefore.
§ 104. Socinus makes the exception, Animadv. ad assert. 6., p. 44: (I) “From these three testimonies nothing else is concluded but that the Father sent and gave the Holy Spirit through Christ to the disciples of Christ. But what does this have to do with proving the trinity of persons in God?” Our response is already clear from what has been said.
(II) “It is more obvious from this that the Father alone is the one God because the Father alone is mentioned as the one from whom (as from the first cause) that sending and giving originate. However, who has ever heard that the one God is sent or given or is the one who sends or gives anything through Him? Surely, these ought to appear to any sensible man as the height of foolishness or, rather, of blasphemy.”
We respond. If these are blasphemies, why does Socinus still acknowledge us as his brothers? As far as the matter itself is concerned, Scripture says clearly that the Son is true God; that He, nevertheless, was sent into the flesh; that the Holy Spirit is true God; that He, nevertheless, is sent into the hearts of believers. This mystery must not be judged on the basis of human reason but on the basis of divine revelation. From the sending of the Holy Spirit it is correct to conclude both the personal distinction of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son and the true and eternal deity of the Son. You see, to whomever the sending of the Holy Spirit is attributed, to Him the might and efficacy of God the Father is attributed because, according to the Photinians, the Holy Spirit is the might and efficacy of God. But to whomever the might and efficacy of God the Father is attributed, to Him the essence of the Father is also attributed because the might and power of God are the very essence of God. To whomever the essence of God is attributed, He is the true, natural, and essential God.
If they say that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9) with regard to His sending, we say that this, indeed, is a correct assertion, but that does not weaken our argument. For if Christ is not true God with the Father, equal to Him in the unity of essence, He does not have the right to send the Holy Spirit, because a lesser does not have the right and power to send a greater. Moreover, observe carefully that the Son does not only say, “I shall pray the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete,” but He also promises that He is going to send the Holy Spirit—“I shall send you the Holy Spirit from the Father” (John 15:26); “If I depart, I shall send you the Holy Spirit” (John 16:7)—and the Spirit of Christ is said to have been “in the prophets” (1 Pet. 1:11).
§ 105. (III) From this it is easy to judge what should be said about the third objection of Socinus (op. cit., p. 64). He says: “When it says the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son, it should be understood that He sends what He has received from the Father. The Son does send the Holy Spirit, but He sends Him from the Father, from whom He proceeds as from a fountain, and the Son is like a stream that supplies and transmits water taken from the source to irrigate the fields. And lest anyone think that it has always been this way or that this depends on the nature of the Son, let him listen to the Son Himself (John 14:16) and to Peter (Acts 2:33).”
Socinus, however, is committing the fallacy of multiple questions.21 It is correct to say these things about Christ according to His human nature, but insofar as He is the one true God with the Father from eternity, the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him no less than from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is sent equally by Him and the Father because of the unity of the essence.
From the same foundation, we can respond to the sophism of Schmalz in Contra Schopper. de trinit.: “Christ asks the Father and sends the Holy Spirit from the Father. Therefore He is not a person equally divine as the Father. After all, the Father asks no one nor does He send the Spirit from anyone except from Himself.” We respond. (1) Intercession does not prove the inequality of a person because an equal can intercede with an equal. (2) It says the Father sends the Holy Spirit “in the name of the Son” (John 14:26), but to send “in the name of” someone is to send “from” someone. (3) It was by breathing that Christ gave the Holy Spirit to the apostles (John 20:22). Therefore the Holy Spirit is also sent from Him. Furthermore, sending in time is a proof of proceeding without time. (4) Consider the emphasis of the words of John 16:13: “The Holy Spirit will speak nothing from Himself; He will take from what is Mine. All things that the Father has are Mine.”
§ 106. (IV) In his Defens. animadv., c. 13, p. 319, Socinus again makes the exception: “From the fact that the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father one can perhaps conclude that He is of the same nature or essence with God the Father, but not that He is a certain person of the divine essence. Although the righteousness of God is of the same essence with God, yet it is not a certain person of His essence.”
We respond. Proceeding [
] denotes both concepts: the unity of the essence and the personal distinction. For because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father from eternity, therefore He is of the same essence with the Father. Because it says He proceeds from the Father, therefore He must be distinct from the Father, as we shall show in greater detail in its own place. Furthermore, with this eternal proceeding, which is unspeakable and unsearchable, we connect the visible appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove in that illustrious theophany that happened in connection with the Baptism of Christ.
§ 107. (V) [Socinus writes, loc. cit.:]
From the fact that Christ calls the Holy Spirit “another Paraclete” it cannot be concluded that He is a true person. For the similarity consists only in this, that just as Christ when present comforted His disciples, so also in His absence the Holy Spirit would comfort them. Therefore the word “Paraclete” should not be separated from the word “another” in the words of Christ, but they should always be read together so that it is understood not that the Father was going to give someone else, about whom it would be said immediately in apposition that He is a paraclete or comforter, but that the Father was going to give another paraclete or comforter. In a similar way, a master of any art could say as he left his poor pupils: “Indeed, I shall depart from you; nevertheless you will have another master, your poverty,” for as the poet has it, “The master of the art is the belly.” But poverty is not a person, though the master himself, who is going away, is a person.
(This explanation of Socinus is set forth in the same words by Schmalz, Refut. thesium D. Graweri de Spiritu s., p. 16.) We respond. (1) He is asserting without any example of Scripture that the word “another” [alius] denotes not another person but another something [aliud quid] in figurative language.
(2) In the highest articles of faith we must not depart from the literal and proper sense of the words; otherwise nothing certain will remain in them. But it is evident that the word alius [“someone else”] is proper to a person, just as the word aliud [“something else”] is proper to nature and essence.
(3) In the cited example about poverty, the master of the poor, everyone readily understands the poetic personification, but no trace of this is found in the words of Christ. You see, Christ did not intend to play around with poetic figures but to instruct the apostles in highly necessary matters with a clear and literal kind of speech.
(4) We conclude from the entire context that the word “another” [alius] is not taken figuratively for a thing but properly, to indicate a person, for in the same divine work Christ joins that other Paraclete with Himself and with the Father as a person with two persons, because He distinguishes Him from the Father and from Himself, calls Him “the Paraclete” and “the Spirit of truth,” says of Him that He teaches and reminds them of all things, attributes to Him in parallel passages a special and distinct personal property, and demonstrates His personality through the disagreement of [grammatical] gender.
(5) The Holy Spirit is called “another Paraclete” not only with respect to the Son but also with respect to the Father as the sequence of words shows: “I shall pray the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete.” But now the Holy Spirit is not something other than the Father with regard to nature and essence, which the Photinians are compelled to confess because they say that He is the might and power of the Father. Therefore He is called “another Paraclete” not essentially but personally.
(6) Christ connects the Holy Spirit and the apostles in testifying (John 15:26–27). But now it is evident that the apostles who testify of Christ are persons.
(7) 
[“He”] is taken personally in that entire chapter, that is, it indicates a certain person.
(8) We join together the other foundations, which prove clearly the personality of the Holy Spirit, and show that all those things that befit only things that subsist of themselves, which are conceived with reference to a “person,” are attributed to the Holy Spirit. You see, special subsistence is attributed to Him when Scripture, speaking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, notes three that subsist [
] and ascribes to each those things that befit a person subsisting of Himself. The genuine notion of a personal property is attributed to the Spirit: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28), just as it is said of the Father: “Yes, Father, because it pleased You” (Matt. 11:[26]). To Him is attributed a will and the operation that follows will (1 Cor. 12:11), to Him is attributed intelligence (1 Cor. 2:10) and power (Isa. 11:2). He is said to be angered by the wicked (Isa. 63:[10]), to receive all things from Christ (John 15:16), not to speak from Himself but to say and declare what He had heard (John 16:14). All of these cannot be understood as a power of God that is not a person distinct from the Father and the Son.
(9) Schmalz says (Contra Schopp.): “Those things that are attributed to the Holy Spirit that are proper to a person can be excused as figures common to Holy Writ: metonymy and personification.” However, there is no room here for any kind of metonymy nor is there any trace of personification.
Especially, however, we always look to the theophany at the Baptism of Christ at which the Holy Spirit appeared under a special and distinct form—in the form of a dove—and to the institution of our own Baptism, in which the Spirit is joined together with the Father and the Son as one person is joined together with two, for the interpretation would be utterly absurd if it said that we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of divine might.
21 The “fallacy of multiple questions as of one” is an argument in which something absurd is concluded from one answer given to multiple different or opposite questions. For example, if one asks, “Is Bill a man and Joe not a man?” no matter whether one answers “yes” or “no,” he will answer falsely. See Scherzer, “Definitiones” p. 84, in Vade mecum.