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And for the three that are said to bear witness on earth; there is, first,
the Spirit, who, though the Holy Ghost were in the former triad, needs not here be taken for another Spirit, but may be the same, considered under another notion, and as testifying in another manner; not transiently and immediately from heaven, as there, but statedly, and as inacting instruments here on earth; extraordinarily, the man Christ Jesus, all his apostles and first disciples, in all the wonderful works which they did for the confirmation of the Christian doctrine; and ordinarily, the whole church of true Christians; for it animates the whole living body of Christ, and makes it, though in an imperfect measure, by a uniform course of actions, tending to God and heaven, an extant visible proof to the world of the truth of that religion which obtains in it, and of his Divine power and nature who is the Head of it. Next,
the water; i.e. the continual untainted, God-like purity of our Lord Jesus, through the whole course of his terrestrial state, manifestly showed him to be the Son of God, an incarnate Deity, inhabiting our world. And lastly,
the blood, his suffering of death, considered in the circumstances, was a most conspicuous, clear testimony and indication who he was; so exactly according to the predictions of the prophets, attended with wonderful amazing concomitants, ending in so glorious a resurrection. And in and with both these
the Spirit, complicating his testimony, did bear witness too, as is intimated (after the former mention of them both) in the latter part of 1Jo_5:6. It testified all along, both in his clear, immaculate life, and in the bloody death in which it assisted him, which it accompanied with so marvellous effects, and out of which at length it fetched him, Rom_1:4. And that part it took, as being the Spirit of truth, 1Jo_5:6, and, as it is there expressed, in the (more emphatical) abstract, truth itself.