meets annually, and is composed of the Bishops and four clergymen and four laymen from each of the three Dioceses. Its objects

are:

"The organization and administering an Appellate Court for adjudicating cases brought before it by appeal from the courts of the Dioceses within the limits of the State of Illinois, etc.

"The charge and care of such educational and charitable institutions as it may canonically establish, or as may be established under its jurisdiction.

"The charge and conduct of matters pertaining to the extension of the Church, so far as these matters may be intrusted to it.

"The acceptance and administration of all funds and donations of any kind which may be given or intrusted to it.

"Legislation upon subjects of common interest to the several Dioceses, the passing of statutes and rules for the government of the Federate Council, and the enacting laws for the due exercise of its powers."

REV. T. N. MORRISON. Illumination. The spiritual enlargement of the understanding and the conscience that cometh from the gift of the HOLY GHOST and of the indwelling of CHRIST," the Light of the World." Baptism bore the name of the Enlightenment. When received, the adults, the newly baptized walked in the new light they had received. Traces of this application of the term illumination appear in St. Paul, as to the Hebrews (x. 32), he writes bidding them remember how "after they were enlightened" they endured a great fight of afflictions; and in vi. 4, occurs that terrible passage which begins, "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift." Not so clearly applicable to baptism, but to its effects as making us new creatures in CHRIST JESUS, are the several passages wherein he speaks of Christians as the children of the light (Eph. v. 8; 1 Thess. v. 5); also St. Peter uses the same language to the Christian Jews whom CHRIST had called "into His marvelous light" (1 Pet. ii. 9), and St. John saith that "he that loveth his brother (a new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another.

By

this shall all men know that ye are My disciples) abideth in the light." So, from subapostolic times, those who had just received baptism were called the Illuminated. But this gift of light flowing from CHRIST the true Light which lighteth every man, is also by the grace of the HOLY GHOST, who lightens the reason, quickens the conscience, fills out the ability, and gives the several gifts fitted for our capacities. By His light in our hearts we can confess CHRIST (1 Cor. xii. 3), and by His light as by a candle (Prob. xx. 27) are our inward parts searched out and known, and from His presence we cannot escape. So by the gift of the Comforter, which includes all other gifts, for from Him is every grace and gift, we receive

that illumination that is for our spiritual growth (cf. 1 Cor. xii. 1-16). The prayer in the Confirmation office shows this His office when the Bishop pleads that we may receive His sevenfold gifts, all of which are for spiritual insight and ghostly strength to walk upon the path of light. "In His Light we shall see light." By humble and lowly use of His illumination can we see both to use aright the graces He bestows to use the opportunities for growth in holiness, and to use the spiritual knowledge that comes by study of the Word of God and of strict self-examination. These as instruments touch the inmost life. These as habits stir up the moral perceptions. These as dwelt in quicken the spiritual insight, that it can rejoice in the knowledge of God's overshadowing Presence and guidance. He that by prayer and meditation, and by active use of what he has thus learned, will try to draw day by day nearer to God, has received and lives in that light which CHRIST hath shed from Himself into the world to lighten every soul.

Image of God. No subject has exercised the devout speculation of the greatest theologians with as little tangible result as this question, Wherein doth the Image of GOD in us consist? It is positively taught in Holy Scripture; we are told of the ruin of this Image, the redemption in CHRIST, and its restoration to us is the Gospel. The Resurrection - day shall see us redeemed, reclothed with it. It shall be the complete satisfaction of the soul, yet nowhere is it explicitly taught us wherein this Image lies. If in the Body, strictly, then, we are led to anthropomorphic conclusions about the Divine Nature. If in the soul, it is in the spiritual life, yet the soul of man is the breath of GoD, and it cannot be said that this Image is concluded in that only. If in gifts that were conferred, and which we sum up in the phrase "Original righteousness," then it was not strictly in the creation, but in the gifts crowning that cre ation, that our likeness to GOD lieth. We cannot certainly know here, but we shall know hereafter; this is the sum of all our speculations, which involve the conceptions we form of the functions of the Church as His restoring Body for us, and of the work of the HOLY GHOST in us, and of the Resurrection Body hereafter. Yet it is not wasted time, since whatever the outcome of our investigations, if we remember that He has chosen to conceal these things, and yet to tell us that they exist, we will be drawn nearer to Him, for we will have something surer from our own research than blind reliance on others' thoughts. There are collected below the chief tests which apply to the main questions raised in the inquiry, subdivided into, I. The creation of man in GOD's likeness. II. The wearing by the SON of GOD of the Image of GOD in man. III. The restoration of the Image of GOD in man by all the means offered.

I. And God said, "Let us make man in our Image, after our Likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So GOD created man in His own Image, in the Image of GOD created He him: male and female created He them" (Gen. i. 26, 27). "In the day that GOD created man, in the likeness of GOD made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when He created them" (Gen. v. 1, 2). "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the Image of GOD made He man" (Gen. ix. 6). "For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the Image and glory of GOD; but the woman is the glory of the man" (1 Cor. xi. 7). "Therewith [the tongue] bless we GOD, even the FATHER; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of GOD" (Jas. iii. 9). These directly state the bare fact that we are in GOD's Likeness. St. Paul throws upon it a significant side light by adding the word "glory," and asserting that woman (made out of man) is the glory of the man. This, however, cannot here be expanded. The second division of the subject is the fact that the Word of God became truly man. Here must be omitted the texts of the Old Testament of the One like to the Son of GOD or in the "similitude of the sons of men."

II. "JESUS Himself, which was the son of Adam which was the Son of GOD" (St. Luke iii. 23-38). "GOD... hath in these last days spoken unto us by His SON,

who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power (Heb. i. 1-3), took on Him the seed of Abraham" (Heb. ii. 16). "GOD sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. viii. 3). "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His SON, that He might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. viii. 29). "Let this mind be in you which was also in CHRIST JESUS, who being in the form of GOD, . . . was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross" (Phil. ii. 5-8). "So it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit" (1 Cor. xv. 45).

This class of texts can be expanded indefinitely, but they indicate that the word of GOD, the brightness of His glory (cf. "the glory of GoD above), and the express Image of His Person, could wear fittingly, for our salvation, the likeness of GOD corrupted through sin, and wore it because He was to restore all things. Under the third division of texts this is very directly taught.

III. "Forasmuch then as the children

are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part in the same; that through death He might destroy Him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage". (Heb. ii. 14, 15). "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the LORD JESUS CHRIST: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to sub due all things unto Himself" (Phil. iii. 20, 21). "For as in Adam all die, even so in CHRIST shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order. . . As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor. xv.). "Beloved, now are we the sons of GOD, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John iii. 2).

Here again these leading texts constantly point to other and less vividly worded texts, binding the whole history of man from the time in which he stood forth the sinless Image of GOD in the Paradise of Eden, throughout his sinful corrupted course, till in the Resurrection-day, redeemed through the second Adam, he shall be restored to the Paradise of GOD.

But as was said above, the lost gifts and faculties have been classified in the most opposite ways. The true clue to the maze is to be found in whatever the LORD JESUS has to bestow, to restore to us. Putting aside forgiveness, because that must be preliminary to any restoration whatever, we see that all His gifts are summed up in the HOLY GHOST. Therefore, in whatever way He reaches into and satisfies and crowns our nature, in these things we can recover the lost traces of our original likeness. To recount these is to recount the strengthening, the glory, the indwelling, the sanctification of the HOLY GHOST, and to describe the work He doth, sent by CHRIST to abide in His Church, in and through the Church and all the restorations she has to give to

us.

Thus the earthly image of GOD shall, through the eternal Image, be restored to its original state.

Images. The use of images in the heathen world was of course largely, if not wholly, for idolatrous purposes. In the first days of Christianity the use of images at all was forbidden, and the artisan who had made his living thereby was, when converted, compelled to seek some other employment. With the daily sight of their worship, it was not possible that the Church could permit them to appear in the comparatively few places of worship she owned. Her earliest teachers, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Minutius Felix, Lactantius, Arnobius, all denounce the sculptor's art in more or less measured terms. There is a thorough consensus of

But

the writers down to 350 A.D., testifying that such a thing as an image of CHRIST in a church was abhorrent to the Christian. This included painting also. But after this date we find the churches begin to be ornamented with paintings of historical scenes from the Bible. Already a simple monogram, and then a figure of a lamb or a vine, and then of figures of the Good Shepherd, had appeared in the catacombs, and upon the chalice of the Eucharistic vessels the Good Shepherd had been chased. it had gone no further. But henceforth we begin to find traces, first of paintings, then of images proper, placed in the churches for adornment and instruction. Epiphanius tells how in one of the churches of Palestine he found a veil with a figure of CHRIST upon it. He tore it down and ordered that it should be used to shroud some poor man, and paid the price of the veil into the Church treasury. But the adornment of the churches had begun and went on apace. The next generation saw with complacency this beautifying of the House of GOD, and justified it on the ground that it was the most convenient way to teach the unlettered in the congregation. The future evil was by no means apparent as yet. But by the year 600 A.D. it began to show itself. Serenus of Marseilles had to remove and destroy all the statues in his Diocese, for the reason that adoration was paid to them, for which Gregory the Great blames him, as destroying what was useful for instruction. In both East and West superstitious ideas were connected from this time on with images, paintings, and relics, and Gregory himself sets the example of recording absurd tales of miracles performed by the relics of saints. The struggle in the East to purify the Church of such a sin gave occasion to the famous Iconoclastic Controversy.

In England, the Saxon Prelates tried to follow the lead of the Council of Frankfort, to which they had informally assented through King Offa. There are abundant proofs that they were fully alive to the danger. But with the Norman conquest came in the later Gallican practice, and soon it passed over the whole kingdom. Though, as in the mandate of William Grenefeld, Archbishop of York (1313 A.D.), there was an effort made to stem the evil.

The Reformation in England put an end to this use of images, with greater zeal than knowledge, for in destroying the images and defacing the shrines much wanton destruction was also committed. The Homily on the Peril of Idolatry was the Church's declaration against one of the crying sins of the day.

What is the true feeling of the Church upon this subject? Probably it may be accurately expressed in this paragraph from Blunt's "Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology": "There is no rule respecting the use of images given to us in the

New Testament. It may be concluded therefore that the Church is left (I.) to that in the Old Testament, which is of perpetual obligation; (II.) to the rules of reason, enlightened by the principles of a complete revelation; (III.) to the measures of a spiritual prudence. Thus (I.) the severity of the Mosaic Law, by which GOD forbade the making images of visible creatures, was only of temporary reason, from the singular proneness of the people to idolatry; the precept of Deut. iv. 15, 16 (comp. Acts xvii. 29), giving a natural reason for a natural duty, is binding on Christians; (II.) reason points out the instruction which may thus be given to the ignorant, the stimulus to s devout imagination, the aid to the memory, the suggestions which may holily minister to faith, while (III.) spiritual prudence remembers that the more ignorance there is the more proneness to superstition, and reminds us that we must be ever on the watch lest faith should become dependent on sight, lest the body should overweight the mind, lest any innate or proper holiness should be attached to, the image, and the mind instead of being helped to pass beyond the image, should rest upon it, as an object of worship. Upon such general principles the Church has a lawful use of images." Our appeal being to the use as well as doctrine of the first six centuries as warrant for our customs, there is nothing in which we can more safely follow them than in the limit the Fathers and Bishops in those ages put upon the adornments of the House of GOD, and in the strictness with which they sacrificed these ornaments when they found that they tended to superstitious veneration. It is better to be far within limits than to dare to exceed

them.

Immaculate Conception. The dogma that the Virgin Mary was herself conceived without sin, which was made an Article of Faith in the Roman Church December 8, 1854 A.D., and which must be believed by every Romanist on pain of excommunica tion. It is, of course, utterly contrary to what Scripture has revealed. It is contrary to all the principles of theology to draw any such deduction. It was a suggestion which was scouted by St. Bernard in 1130 A.D. in memorable words. He did not deny that to her, as to Jeremiah and to St. John Baptist, there was a sanctity before birth. But to assert sinlessness of the Blessed Virgin was to go beyond reason and revelation. "What if another should assert that festal honors should be paid to each of her parents? But then the same could be urged for similar reason for her grandparents, and her greatgrandparents, and therefore it would go on infinitely, and there would be no end of Feasts.

Though it is given to a few of the sons of men to receive sanctity before they receive birth, yet it is not given to be conceived without sin. To one the prerogative of a sinless conception was given who should sanctify all others, and Himself com

ing without sin, might purge us of our sins." (Letter to the Canons of Lyons, Ep. 174.) It was resisted by a long series of theologians, and curiously, all were forbidden finally by Pope Gregory XV. (1622 A.D.) to discuss it except the Dominican Order, who had always opposed it! But under the influence of the Jesuits the heresy, for it is no less, was promulgated by Pius IX., and made binding upon the Faith and Conscience of all Romanists.

Immanuel. The name prophesied by Isaiah as the name of Him whom the Virgin should bear, and which was given by the Evangelist St. Matthew to the son of the Virgin. The two passages should be compared together.

Isaiah vii. 10-16: "Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy GOD; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD. And He said, Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my GoD also? Therefore the LORD Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name IMMANUEL. Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings."

With this compare St. Matt. i. 22, 23: "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the LORD by the prophet, saying, Behold, a Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name EMMANUEL, which being interpreted is, GoD with us."

The Church has always held the prophecy in Isaiah to be fulfilled as the Evangelist by the HOLY GHOST has recorded, and Immanuel is one of the titles of our Blessed SAVIOUR which declares to us His Divinity and the certainty of our redemption. Late neology has tried to attack the prophecy mainly on the ground of the latter part: "Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." It is claimed that there must have been a local fulfillment. It is now admitted that Almah can only mean a pure virgin. It is also conceded that prophecy commingles the present and the future in a mode that makes it difficult to separate the one from the other till after the event has given us the clue to the interpretation. Here we have a double intermingling, for the Child (who should not be born, in fact, till seven hundred and forty years after) should not know to distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant food before the allies Pekah, King of Israel, and Rezin, King of Syria, should be defeated, Rezin killed, and Pekab deprived of half his do

minions. The obscurity lies in the assertion to Ahaz, that this should be a sign then, within a definite time, whereas its proper fulfillment was in CHRIST. There is undoubtedly a reference to some detail which is not recorded, while this special prophecy is bound up with the other clear reference to CHRIST,For unto us a child is born" (Is. ix. 6). And that IMMANUEL was the name of the child of the distant future is clear, " And he shall pass (i.e., the Assyrian king, as Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar) through Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O IMMANUEL."

Immersion. Vide BAPTISM.

Impannation. Vide CONSUBSTANTIATION. Implicit Faith. A childlike disposition to receive doctrine or demands on obedience without question. But it is not the right of our free-will to surrender this Faith to any series of statements or to any doctrine, or to render such personal obedience save to those propounded to us by Him who has all-infallible authority. Therefore GOD alone is the Person to whom implicit faith can be yielded. Such a faith Abraham apparently yielded to GOD thrice. Such a faith the father of the lunatic child prayed for: "LORD, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief."

Imposition of Hands. A ceremony in blessing, ordaining, and in consecrating, which is of the earliest use in the Jewish and in the Christian Church. So the Patriarchs blessed their sons. Isaac blessed

Jacob, Jacob blessed Joseph's two sons, so our LORD blessed the children brought to Him. So too the sick had His Hands and the hands of His Apostles laid upon them. So Ananias laid his hands on the blinded Saul. So in confirmation this Imposition was and is essential (Acts viii. 17; Heb. vi. 2). In ordination the Hands of the Apostle gave authority (2 Tim. i. 6; 1 Tim. v. 22). So in consecration, Joshua had Moses' hands laid upon him. So the Bishops lay hands on Bishops for consecration. Moses laid his hands upon Joshua, so they give of their honor and rank to the Bishop elect.

As

Impropriation. Ecclesiastical property whose profits have passed into lay hands. Appropriation is when a college receives such profits. Henry VIII. gave monastic property to lay favorites. Archbishop Laud endeavored to redeem such Impropriations.

Imputed Righteousness. It has been terribly perverted so as to be made to mean that CHRIST'S Righteousness is so given to us that no sin after that is laid to the charge of the believer. In other words, as one (Dr. Crisp) wrote over two hundred years ago, "Though a believer, after he be a believer, doth sin often, yet GoD no longer stands offended and displeased with him when he hath once received CHRIST," or

Hervey, "Notorious or confessed transgressors in themselves, they have a sinless obedience in CHRIST." Now this is wholly opposed to all the teaching of Holy Scripture. It denies the force of what is taught in Heb. vi. 4-6; x. 29, of innumerable other places which are scattered throughout the Epistles of St. Paul. But there is an imputed righteousness to the baptized person which is clearly taught in Holy Scripture, which yet teaches us that we can forfeit it. This imputed righteousness is set forth by St. Paul most emphatically, in his Epistle to the Philippians iii. 8-11: "Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of JESUS CHRIST my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win CHRIST, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of CHRIST, the righteousness which is of GOD by faith; that I may know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Here it is all dependent upon CHRIST's righteousness found in the believer, yet that believer must be risen with CHRIST, suffering with CHRIST, conforming to His death, and, in the hope of the future resurrection of the dead, with a clinging, working dependence upon CHRIST. Also we are taught that in Baptism.we put on CHRIST and are brought into a Holy BODY, His Church, and are called to be saints, and there is given to us a share in that Holiness, a right to the privileges of CHRIST's Church. As an adopted son claims the rank and honor of the family that adopts him, and is shielded by its power and influence and shares its privileges in the face of the world, so CHRIST grants these to him, though he may not live in all things up to the lofty standard required. But should he throw away or misuse these advantages given to him and allowed before all the world, surely the Head of the House who adopts may also deprive him and finally disinherit him of those grants his adoption bestowed on him. In these respects we have CHRIST'S righteousness imputed to us, that we may retain it and grow in it. Grace and the Sacraments are given us, and we are urged to live after the SPIRIT. Our dear LORD gives freely, but He demands a hearty, faithful use of what He so lovingly gives, and we may not dare trespass willfully upon His forbearance.

Incarnation, The. This central doctrine of all Christian faith in GoD the FATHER and in our LORD JESUS CHRIST is so freely discussed or used in other articles (vide CREED, GOD, JESUS CHRIST), that it is only necessary to make a somewhat more compact and formal statement of the Church's doctrine upon this momentous fact.

The Incarnation was provided for in the eternal counsels of GOD. St. John saw our LORD as the Lamb of GOD as it had been slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. xiii. 8). It was promised at the Fall, it was foretold with ever-increasing fullness in succeeding ages, till Malachi closed the long series with the herald cry that the Angel of the Covenant was at hand (Mal. iii. 1). In the fullness of times the Word of GOD the SON from everlasting took upon Himself flesh,-not the nature of angels, but our flesh,-of the seed of Abraham in the royal line of David; took upon Himself our flesh, -not a phantasmic garb of human form. He was conceived by the operation of the HOLY GHOST in the pure womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was made truly man. He took no body that could be inhabited by another soul. But the body prepared for Him (Ps. xl. 6; Heb. x. 5) He so united to Himself, being the WORD from everlasting, that in the several stages of its conception, development, birth, and growth to full manhood He was ever present in it, filled it as our soul fills our body and is enrobed by it and dwells in it as our personality. He being two Natures, eternal WORD and Perfect Man, became but one Person, JESUS CHRIST. And so He truly united Himself with us, taking body and soul to Himself, entered into and became a part of the vast stream of human beings who are born unto and live in sin, toil, and are disciplined in this world of ours. So He stooped to enter into time, emptied Himself of the glory He had in His FATHER'S courts, took our flesh, became man, suffered pain and hunger and thirst most truly; was sorrowful, and wept and watched and prayed and fasted, as we should; loved His disciples and friends, sympathized with all in sorrow, need, sickness, and afflietion, and compassionated the sin-sick, repentant souls; taught as man to fellow-men the wondrous facts about themselves, and of Himself and His purposes, and, making atonement, died as truly as ever man died, and as truly raised Himself the third day, and became, as before, subject to mortal change, so now immortal and above all mortal change.

This but prepares the way for the fuller effect of His Incarnation upon our natura and history. It is a fundamental law that when men realize GOD's presence and power they acknowledge a duty of service and worship. Were CHRIST but a sinless, perfect, yet mere man, none would feel this duty, but being GOD-man, at once all own a bounden service and worship to Him, and a desire to be overshadowed by His mercy and share in His love, to be bound by His laws, to come into His covenant; and this is intensified by our instinctive recognition of the compassion and wondrous wisdom of His Incarnation, of the fact that it touches our deepest common humanity; that His manhood is related to the poorest and the highest