ony with confidence. This
testimony is manifold, and uttered on several occasions,--to the
Sanhedrim's deputation, to the people, and to his own disciples. It is
negative as well as positive. He repudiates the suggestions of the
deputation from Jerusalem that he himself is the Christ, or that he is
in their sense Elijah. But the most remarkable repudiation of honours
which could be rendered to Christ alone is found recorded in chap. iii.
22-30, when the growing popularity of Jesus excited the jealousy of
those who still adhered to the Baptist. Their complaint was the occasion
of calling up clearly in the Baptist's own consciousness the relation in
which he stood to Jesus, and of prompting the most emphatic enouncement
of the unrivalled dignity of our Lord. He says to his jealous disciples,
"If I do not gather a crowd of followers while Jesus does, this is
because God has appointed to me one place, to Him another. Beyond God's
design no man's destiny and success can extend. What is designed for me
I shall receive; beyond that I desire to receive and I can receive
nothing. Least of all would I covet to be called the Christ. You know
not what you say in even remotely hinting that such a man as I could be
the Christ. It is no mere unworldliness or purity which can raise a man
to this dignity. He is from above; not to be named with prophets, but
the Son of God, who belongs to the heavenly world of which He speaks."

To make the difference between himself and Christ clear, the Baptist
hits upon the happy figure of the Bridegroom and the Bridegroom's
friend. "He that has and keeps the Bride is the Bridegroom. He to whom
the world is drawn, and on whom all needy souls lean, is the Bridegroom,
and to Him alone belongs this special joy of satisfying all human
needs. I am not the Bridegroom, because men cannot find in me
satisfaction and rest. I cannot be to them the source of spiritual life.
Moreover, by instigating me to assume the Bridegroom's place you would
rob me of my peculiar joy, the joy of the Bridegroom's friend." The
function of the bridegroom's friend, or paranymph, was to ask the hand
of the bride for the bridegroom, and to arrange the marriage. This
function the Baptist claims as his. "My joy," he says, "is to have
negotiated this matter, to have encouraged the Bride to trust her Lord.
It is my joy to hear the glad and loving words that pass between
Bridegroom and Bride. Do not suppose I look with sadness on the
def