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through the senses; the substitution of sentiment for real religious principle; and the license which this gave to inventions of men, which in process of time became complicated and monstrous. That debasement of mind, and that alienation of the heart from God, and the gross immoralities and licentious practices which have ever accompanied idolatry, will sufficiently account for the severity with which it is denounced, both in the Old and New Testaments.

The veneration which the papists pay to the Virgin Mary, and other saints and angels, and to the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics, and images, affords ground for the protestants to charge them with being idolaters, though they deny that they are so. It is evident that they worship these persons and things, and that they justify the worship, but deny the idolatry of it, by distinguishing subordinate from supreme worship. This distinction is justly thought by protestants to be futile and nugatory, and certainly has no support from holy writ.

Under the government of Samuel, Saul, and David, there was little or no idolatry in Israel. Solomon was the first Hebrew king, who, in complaisance to his foreign wives, built temples and offered incense to strange gods. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who succeeded him in the greater part of his dominions, set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Under the reign of Ahab, this disorder was at its height, occasioned by Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, who did all she could to destroy the worship of the true God, by driving away and persecuting his prophets. God, therefore, incensed at the sins and idolatry of the ten tribes, abandoned those tribes to the kings of Assyria and Chaldea, who transplanted them beyond the Euphrates, from whence they never returned. The people of Judah were no less corrupted. The prophets give an awful description of their idolatrous practices. They were punished after the same manner, though not so severely, as the ten tribes; being led into captivity several times, from which at last they returned, and were settled in the land of Judea, after which we hear no more of their idolatry. They have been indeed, ever since that period, distinguished for their zeal against it. See IMAGE.

IDUMEA is properly the Greek name for the land of Edom, which lay to the south of Judea, and extended from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, where were the ports of Elath and Ezion-Geber. But the Idumæa of the New Testament applies only to a small part adjoining Judea on the south, and including even a portion of that country; which was taken possession of by the Edomites, or Idumæans, while the land lay unoccupied during the Babylonish captivity. The capital of this country was Hebron, which had formerly been the metropolis of the tribe of Judah. These Idumæans were so reduced by the Maccabees, that, in order

to retain their possessions, they consented to embrace Judaism; and their territory became incorporated with Judea; although, in the time of our Saviour, it still retained its former name of Idumæa, Mark iii. 8. The proper Idumæans, or those who remained in the ancient land of Edom, became in process of time mingled with the Ishmaelites; the two people thus blended, being, from Nabaioth, or Nabath, the son of Ishmael, termed Nabathæans; under which names they are frequently mentioned in history. See EDOM. ILLYRICUM, a province lying to the north and north-west of Macedonia, along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Gulf, or Gulf of Venice. It was distinguished into two parts: Liburnia to the north, where is now Croatia, and Dalmatia to the south, which still retains the same name, and to which, as St. Paul informs Timothy, Titus went, 2 Tim. iv. 10. St. Paul says, that he preached the gospel from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum, Rom. xv. 19.

IMAGE, in a religious sense, is an artificial representation of some person or thing used as an object of adoration, and is synonymous with idol. Nothing can be more clear, full, and distinct, than the expressions of scripture prohibiting the making and worship of images, Exod. xx. 4, 5; Deut. xvi. 22. No sin is so strongly and repeatedly condemned in the Old Testament as that of idolatry, to which the Jews, in the early part of their history, were much addicted, and for which they were constantly punished. St. Paul was greatly affected, when he saw that the city of Athens was wholly given to idolatry," Acts xvii. 16; and declared to the Athenians, that they ought not "to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device," Acts xvii. 29. He condemns those who 'changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things," Romans i. 23.

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That the first Christians had no images, is evident from this circumstance,-that they were reproached by the heathens, because they did not use them; and we find almost every ecclesiastical writer of the first four centuries arguing against the gentile practice of image worship, from the plain decla rations of scripture, and from the pure and spiritual nature of God. The introduction of images into places of Christian worship, dates its origin soon after the times of Constantine the Great; but the earlier Christians reprobated every species of image-worship in the strongest language. It is sometimes pretended by the papists, that they do not worship the images, but God through the medium of images; or, that the worship which they pay to images is inferior to that which they pay to the Deity himself. These distinctions would be scarcely understood by the common people; and formerly an enlightened heathen or Jew would probably

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have urged the same thing. The practice is in direct opposition to the second commandment, and notwithstanding every sophistical palliation, it has always led to a transfer of human trust from God to something else. Hence idolatry, in general, is condemned in scripture; and all use of images in the worship of God, making or bowing to any likeness, is absolutely forbidden. See ÍCONOCLASTES and IDOLATRY.

IMMATERIALITY, abstraction from matter; or what we understand by pure spirit.

IMMORTAL. That which will endure to all eternity, as having in itself no principle of alteration or corruption. God is absolutely immortal,-he cannot die. Angels are immortal; but God, who made them, can terminate their being. Man is immortal in part, that is, in his spirit; but his body dies. Inferior creatures are not immortal; they die wholly. Thus the principle of immortality is differently communicated, according to the will of him who can render any creature immortal, by prolonging its life; who can confer immortality on the body of man, together with his soul; and will do so at the resurrection. God only is absolutely perfect, and, therefore, absolutely immortal. See SOUL.

IMPOSITION OF HANDS. An ecclesiastical action, by which, among Episcopalians, a bishop lays his hands on the head of a person, in ordination, confirmation, or in uttering a blessing. In Presbyterian churches, the imposition is by the hands of the Presbytery. This practice is also frequently observed by the Independents and others at their ordinations, when all the ministers present place their hands on the head of him whom they are ordaining, while one of them prays for a blessing on him and his future labours. This they retain as an ancient practice, justified by the example of the apostles, when no extraordinary gifts were conveyed. However, Christians are not agreed as to the propriety of this ceremony; nor do they all consider it as an essential part of ordination.

Imposition of hands was a Jewish ceremony, introduced, not by any divine authority, but by custom; it being the practice among that people, whenever they prayed to God for any person, to lay their hands on his head. Our Saviour observed the same custom, both when he conferred his blessing on children, and when he cured the sick. The apostles likewise laid hands on those upon whom they bestowed the Holy Ghost, but it was a form accompanied by prayer, through which only the blessing was obtained. And the apostles themselves sometimes underwent the imposition of hands afresh, when they entered upon any new design. In the ancient church, imposition of hands was practised on persons when they married; which custom the Abyssinians still observe. But this ceremony of laying on of

hands is now restrained, by custom, chiefly to that imposition which is practised at the ordination of ministers. See

IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. JUSTIFICATION.

INCENSE. Thus; so called by the dealers of drugs in Egypt from thur, or thor, the name of a harbour in the north bay of the Red Sea, near Mount Sinai; thereby distinguishing it from the gum arabic, which is brought from Suez, another port in the Red Sea, not far from Cairo. It differs also in being more pellucid and white. It burns with a bright and strong flame, not easily extinguished. It was used in the temple service as an emblem of prayer, Psalm cxli. 2; Rev. viii. 3, 4. Authors give it, or the best sort of it, the epithets white, pure, pellucid; and so it may have some connexion with a word, derived from the same root, signifying unstained, clear, and so applied to moral whiteness and purity, Psalm li. 7; Dan. xii. 10. This gum is said to distil from incisions made in the tree during the heat of summer. What tl:e form of the tree is which yields it, we do not certainly know. Pliny one while says, it is like a pear-tree; another, that it is like a mastic-tree; then, that it is like the laurel; and, in fine, that it is a kind of turpentine-tree. It has been said to grow only in the country of the Sabeans, a people in Arabia Felix; and Theophrastus and Pliny affirm that it is found in Arabia. Dioscorides, however, mentions an Indian as well as an Arabian frankincense. At the present day it is brought from the East Indies, but not of so good a quality as that from Arabia. The "sweet incense," mentioned Exodus xxx. 7, and elsewhere, was a compound of several drugs, agreeably to the direction in the thirty-fourth verse. To offer incense was an office peculiar to the priests. They went twice a day into the holy place; namely, morning and evening, to burn incense there. Upon the great day of expiation, the High Priest took incense, or perfume, pounded and ready for being put into the censer, and threw it upon the fire, the moment he went into the sanctuary. One reason of this was, that so the smoke which rose from the censer might prevent his looking with too much curiosity on the ark and mercy-seat. God threatened him with death upon failing to perform this ceremony, Leviticus xvi. 13. Generally, in.

cense is to be considered as an emblem of the " prayers of the saints," and is so used by the sacred writers.

INCEST, an unlawful conjunction of persons related within the degrees of kindred prohibited by God. In the beginning of the world, and again, long after the deluge, marriages between near relations were allowed. In the time of Abraham and Isaac, these marriages were permitted, and among the Persians much later it is even said to be esteemed neither criminal nor ignominious among the remains

of the old Persians at this day. Some
authors believe that marriages between near
relations were permitted, or, at least, tole-
rated, till the time of Moses, who first pro-
hibited them among the Hebrews; and that
among other people they were allowed even
after him. Others hold the contrary; but
it is hard to establish either of these opi-
nions, for want of historical documents.
The degrees of consanguinity within which
marriage was prohibited are stated in Lev.
xviii. 6-18. Most civilized people have
looked on incests as abominable crimes. St.
Paul, speaking of the incestuous man of
Corinth, says,
"It is reported commonly,
that there is fornication among you, and
such fornication as is not so much as named
among the gentiles, that one should have his
father's wife," 1 Cor. v. 1. In order to pre-
serve chastity in families, and between per-
sons of different sexes, brought up and living
together in a state of unreserved intimacy,
it is necessary, by every method possible, to
inculcate an abhorrence of incestuous con-
junctions; which abhorrence can only be
upholden by the absolute reprobation of all
commerce of the sexes between near rela-
tions. Upon this principle, the marriage,
as well as other cohabitations, of brothers
and sisters, of lineal kindred, and of all who
usually live in the same family, may be said
to be forbidden by the law of nature.
strictions which extend to remoter degrees

Re

of kindred than what this reason makes it necessary to prohibit from intermarriage, are founded in the authority of the positive law which ordains them, and can only be justified by their tendency to diffuse wealth, to connect families, or to promote some political advantage. The Levitical law, which is received in this country, and from which the rule of the Roman law differs very little, prohibits marriages between relations within three degrees of kindred; computing the generations, not from, but through, the common ancestor, and accounting affinity the same as consanguinity. The issue, how ever, of such marriages are not bastardized, unless the parents be divorced during their life-time.

INCHANTMENTS. The law of God

condemns inchantments and inchanters. Several terms are used in scripture to denote inchantments: 1. wb, which signifies to mutter, to speak with a low voice, like magicians in their evocations and magical operations, Psalm lviii. 6. 2. ›bb, secrets, whence Moses speaks of the inchantments wrought by Pharaoh's magicians. 3. w, meaning those who practise juggling, legerdemain, tricks, and witchery, deluding people's eyes and senses, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6. 4. 12, which signifies, properly, to bind, assemble, associate, re-unite: this occurs principally among those who charm serpents, who tame them, and make them gentle and sociable, which before were fierce, dangerous, and untractable, Deut. xviii. 11. We have

examples of each of these ways of inchanting. It was common for magicians, sorcerers, and inchanters, to speak in a low voice, to whisper they are called ventriloqui, because they spake, as one would suppose, from the bottom of their stomachs. They affected secrecy and mysterious ways, to conceal the vanity, folly, or infamy of their pernicious art. Their pretended magic often consisted in cunning tricks only, in sleight of hand, or some natural secrets, unknown to the ignorant. They affected obscurity and night, or would show their skill only before the uninformed, or mean persons, and feared nothing so much as serious examinations, broad day-light, and the inspection of the intelligent. Respecting the inchantments practised by Pharaoh's magicians, (see Exod. viii. 18, 19,) in order to imitate the miracles which were wrought by Moses, it must be said, either that they were mere illusions, whereby they imposed on the spectators; or that, if they performed such miracles, and produced real changes of their rods, and the other things said to be performed by them, it must have been by a supernatural power which God had permitted satan to give them, but the further operation of which he afterwards thought proper to prevent.

INDEPENDENTS, a denomination of Protestants in England and Holland, originally called Brownists. They derive their name from their maintaining that every parti ing to the New Testament, a full power of cular congregation of Christians has, accordecclesiastical jurisdiction over its members, independent of the authority of bishops, synods, presbyteries, or any other ecclesiastical assemblies. This denomination appeared in England in the year 1616. John Robinson, a Norfolk divine, who, being banished from his native country for nonconformity, afterwards settled at Leyden,

was considered as their founder and father. He possessed sincere piety, and no inconsiderable share of learning. Perceiving defects in the denomination of the Brownists, to which he belonged, he employed his zeal modelling the society. Though the Indepenand diligence in correcting them, and in new dents considered their own form of ecclesiastical government as of divine institution, and as originally introduced by the authority of the apostles, nay, by the apostles themselves; yet they did not always think it necessary to condemn other denominations, but often acknowledged that true religion might flourish in those communities which were under the jurisdiction of bishops, or the government of presbyteries. They approved, also, of a regu lar and educated ministry; nor is any person among them now permitted to speak in public before he has submitted to a proper examination of his capacity and talents, and has been approved of by the church to which he belonged. Their grounds of separation from the established church are different

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