The conclusion of this memorable discourse also takes off all the edge which has been given to those words, in the earlier part of it, in which it is said, '_the Spirit breathes where He wills_.' I have treated that language as expressing the entire freedom of His operations, His independence on material agents as well as on the will of the creature. But if any one concludes that the Spirit does not will that all men should believe and come to the knowledge of the truth, he must deny that He is the Spirit of that God who sent not His Son to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. DISCOURSE VIII. THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE BRIDEGROOM'S FRIEND. [Lincoln's Inn, Easter Sunday, March 23, 1856.] ST. JOHN III. 30. _He must increase; I must decrease._ We have seen, in the first chapter of this Gospel, how much the work and office of John the Baptist are connected with all the deepest thoughts and announcements of the Apostle. The more we study him, the more probable, I think, the old tradition of the Church, that he was a disciple of the Baptist, must appear to us,--the more we shall understand the cause of his anxiety to point out the exact relation between his two teachers. I have endeavoured to show you that it is not the _superiority_ of the Christ to the forerunner which he chiefly dwells upon. That difference had been sufficiently brought out by the earlier evangelists. He insists that the superiority of the Christ rested on His _priority_; that the later in order of manifestation was the first in order of being; that of His fulness John and all previous prophets had received; that of Him, as the Word of God, as the Light of men, they had all borne witness. Whether Jesus was or was not the Word made flesh,--whether He did or did not prove that in Him was the Life of all things, and that He was the Light of men,--are questions which the Evangelist undertakes to resolve for us in the course of his narrative. Upon that point the Baptist may at times have had a strong conviction; at times he might be doubtful. But that there was such a Word of God, such a Light of men, and that He would make Himself manifest, this was the groundwork of his prophecy; by this proclamation he proved himself to be of the same class with Isaiah and Ezekiel; by this he showed that a kingdom of heaven must be at hand, in which the least might be greater than he.