DR. BRIGHT ON THE INCARNATION.*
DR. BRIGHT is well known as one of the most learned and cautious of our divines, and these Sermons are worthy of his reputation. The title of the volume indicates, as far as a brief title can, the nature of its contents. It contains thirty sermons, which present the doctrine of the Incarnation from various points of view, practical and theological With two or three exceptions, the sermons are brief ; but the reader will find more matter packed into the eight or nine pages of which each sermon, on the average, consists, than in double the space occupied by the ordinary run of published sermons. Dr. Bright does not waste words. Thorough master of his subject, he starts in each sermon with a distinct idea which he seeks to develop, or with a practical lesson which he desires to enforce; and his language is so clear and so fitted to the thought, that the reader is never obliged to read a sentence twice over to see what the author means. The sermons have thus a practical value for such of the clergy as have many sermons to preach and but little time to prepare them. They will find this volume pregnant with matter which they can easily enlarge for their own purposes. For a really thoughtful preacher gives much more than the bare contents of his words : he stimulates and suggests
• The Incarnation as a Motive Power. Sermons by William Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History ; Honorary Canon of Cumbrse. London: Rivingtons. 1889.
thought in others. Dr. Bright's sermons are more prolific in this sense than most sermons which have come under our notice for some years. The following is an example of the happy turn which he now and then gives to his discourse.
His text is the cure of Naaman's leprosy by the sevenfold ablution in the Jordan. After dwelling for a moment on the
wounded dignity of the Syrian soldier when the prophet, without deigning to speak to him, bids him by a messenger to wash seven times in the sacred river, Dr. Bright proceeds:— "He turns away in wrath ; and then other slaves of his come forward in a manner which exhibits the condition of domestic servitude in the old Eastern world as easier and happier by far than we know it to have been in liter ages (and must we not add that the relations of master and servant in Christian households might often be improved by means of this Syrian example ?) These slaves address Naaman as their father, and gently recall him to his better self. The question, we see, is dexterously shifted. It is not worth while to stand upon dignity and stickle for compli- ments ; it is worth while to do what may promote one's serious object, especially when the advice can be followed and tested with
so little effort. If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest not thou have done it ? how much rather then when he does but say to thee, Wash and be clean.' The appeal from self-importance to good sense is at once successful."
And then, after noticing the fact that Naaman had to travel thirty miles to the Jordan, and twenty miles back again to return thanks to the prophet of Israel, Dr. Bright builds upon the story an admirable exposition of the sacramental system, the essence of which consists in the striking contrast between the insignificance of the means and the spiritual effect; the truth, of course, being that the virtue really comes from God, the material agency being merely the instrument of its conveyance.
The sermon on our Lord's Temptation is an excellent example of Dr. Bright's faculty of elucidating a difficult sub-
ject. The problem, of course, is how Christ's temptation could have been a real trial to him and an example to us, if he was really incapable of sinning. It follows from the
primal idea of his incarnation, that he was not only sinless in matter of fact, but absolutely impeccable. For it is of the essence of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation that Jesus had but one Person which is divine, and with which he united a human nature with all the attributes of humanity minus personality. From this it follows that, although the nature which was tempted was human, the person who was tempted was God, and God is necessarily impeccable. How, then, could our Lord's temptation have been a reality P Is not liability to sin, though not necessarily actual sin, involved in the very idea of temptation ? This brings us face to face with a question lately discussed in our columns,—the limitation of our Lord's human nature. Dr. Bright insists on the com- pleteness of Christ's humanity, short of anything which might "involve moral taint." He admits that Christ might feel a strong desire to satisfy the pangs of hunger by miracle ; that "it might occur to Him that there would be no harm, but good, in making a great public act of reliance on the divine promise of protection," by leaping down from the pinnacle of the Temple ; " or that it would be a happy thing to hasten the establishment of His own kingdom, to subdue the world without the miseries of a struggle, to win the crown without first bearing the cross. The scene in Geth- semane compresses, as it were, into a small compass, and at the same time highly intensifies, the temptation' at the outset of His ministry. Then, at its close, while fainting under the anguish of the Sinbearer,' He considers, so to speak, whether
it may not be possible, consistently with His duty, to avoid the awful ' cup." If it be possible '—but not otherwise."
This surely implies a limitation of our Lord's knowledge as to the possibility of escape from the last agony. He did not at the moment know if escape were possible; hoped that it was ; and prayed for deliverance, if compatible with the purpose of his Messianic mission. May we not therefore say that our Lord's divine nature allowed the human nature to develop in all its parts in accordance with the ordinary laws of human development P If he "grew in wisdom and stature," the growth of the moral and intellectual faculties must have been as real as that of the bodily organs and senses. While, there- fore, we know that he could not have yielded to the temptation, may we not believe, without in the least trenching on the received doctrine of the Incarnation, that the impossibility of his yielding to the temptation was not necessarily present to his own human soul at each moment of temptation ? Did not his nature pass through the process of growth from immaturity to perfection which characterises all other human beings P And does not this imply possibility of error (say) in learning the trade of a carpenter, in grammar, in spelling, in geography ? And if so, may we not add in astronomy also, and in astronomy and literary criticism P To concede so much is,. of course, not to admit that he was fallible as a teacher of moral and theological truth, or that the errors of his immature manhood were not corrected in process of time by the discipline of study and instruction. Even during his public ministry we find evidence of this limitation of knowledge, as when, in the case of the woman with the issue of blood, he asked, " Who touched me ? " We cannot suppose that this question came from pretended ignorance, for he proceeded to explain why he had asked it.
On the other hand, we must of course always bear in mind that this limitation of our Lord's human faculties was self- imposed. He was under no external restraint or compulsion. The restrictions which he placed upon his humanity were his own free act. In an appendix to his book, Dr. Bright has an excellent note on this emptying himself of divine attributes (zsZoic) by our Lord. He observes truly, " that as the Son,. at the moment of His condescension, was already existing in the form of God, that of which He divested Himself was not that in which He then existed, but the unlimited exercise of the prerogatives attaching to His co-equality." " That fact involved His acceptance, within the human sphere on which He thereby entered, of restrictions, of subjection, of obscurations, pertaining to the position of a servant,' as distinct from the position of a Son co-equal with the Father..
As man, He willed to live compassed with sinless infirmities, and in dependence as to His soul's life on the word, the will, the presence of His Father,—a dependence, be it always remembered, not scenic, but genuine and actual."
We are glad to have from so eminent an authority as Dr. Bright this emphatic insistence on the reality of our Lord's. " self-emptying" as God, and all that this cardinal verity implies. So long as we hold firmly that our Lord never sinned or could have sinned, and never taught or could have taught doctrinal or moral error, it seems to us that the limitation of his knowledge on other subjects may well be left an open question among devout Christians, with the necessary proviso, of course, that all restrictions on his human faculties were voluntarily imposed by himself as part of the law of suffering to which he had deigned to submit as emphatically the " Man of Sorrows."
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