A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

IMMERSION. A mode of administering the sacrament of baptism, by which first the right side, then the left, then the face, are dipped in the font. Immersion is the mode of baptizing first prescribed in our office of public baptism; but it is permitted to pour water upon the child, if the godfathers and godmothers certify that the child is weak. (See Affusion.)

IMMOVEABLE FEASTS. (See Moveable Feasts.)

IMPANATION. A term (like transubstantiation and consubstantiation) used to designate a false notion of the manner of the presence of the body and blood of our blessed Lord in the holy eucharist.

This word is formed from the Latin panis (bread), as the word incarnation is formed from the Latin caro, carnis (flesh): and as incarnation signifies the eternal Word’s becoming flesh, or taking our nature for the purpose of our redemption; so does impanation signify the Divine person Jesus Christ, God and man, becoming bread [and wine], or taking the nature of bread, for the purposes of the holy eucharist: so that, as in the one Divine person Jesus Christ there were two perfect natures, God and man; so in the eucharistic elements, according to the doctrine expressed by the word impanation, there are two perfect natures—one of the Divine Son of the Blessed Virgin, and another of the eucharistic elements; the two natures being one, not in a figurative, but in a real and literal sense, by a kind of hypostatical union.

It does not occur to us that there is any sect which holds this false notion; but there are some individuals to whom it seems the true method of reconciling those apparent oppositions, (which are of the very essence of a mystery,) which occur in the Catholic statement of the doctrine of the holy eucharist. The nearest approach to the doctrine of impanation avowed by any sect, is that of the Lutherans. (See Consubstantiation.)

IMPLICIT FAITH. The faith which is given without reserve or examination, such as the Church of Rome requires of her members. The reliance we have on the Church of England is grounded on the fact, that she undertakes to prove that all her doctrines are Scriptural, but the Church of Rome requires credence on her own authority. The Church of England places the Bible as an authority above the Church, the Church of Rome makes the authority of the Church co-ordinate with that of the Bible. The Romish divines teach that we are to observe, not how the Church proves anything, but what she says: that the will of God is, that we should believe and confide in his ministers in the same manner as himself. Cardinal Toletus, in his instructions for priests, asserts, “that if a rustic believes his bishop proposing an heretical tenet for an article of faith, such belief is meritorious.” Cardinal Cusanus tells us, “That irrational obedience is the most consummate and perfect obedience, when we obey without attending to reason, as a beast obeys his driver.” In an epistle to the Bohemians he has these words: “I assert that there are no precepts of Christ but those which are received as such by the Church (meaning the Church of Rome). When the Church changes her judgment, God changes his judgment likewise.”

IMPOSITION, or LAYING ON OF HANDS. St. Paul (Heb. vi. 2) speaks of the doctrine of laying on of hands as one of the fundamentals of Christianity: it is an ecclesiastical action, by which a blessing is conveyed from God through his minister to a person prepared by repentance and faith to receive it. It is one of the most ancient forms in the world, sanctioned by the practice of Jacob, Moses, the apostles, and our blessed Lord himself. It is the form by which the bishop conveys his blessing in confirmation.

This ceremony has been always esteemed so essential a part of ordination, that any other way of conferring orders without it has been judged invalid. The imposition of hands undoubtedly took its rise from the practice of the Jewish Church, in initiating persons for performing any sacred office, or conferring any employ of dignity or power. Thus Joshua was inaugurated to his high office. (Numb. xxvii. 23.) Hence the Jews derived their custom of ordaining their rabbis by imposition of hands. The same ceremony we find used by the apostles, as often as they admitted any new members into the ministry of the Church. For, when they ordained the first deacons, it is recorded, that after praying “they laid hands on them.” (Acts vi. 6.) At the ordination of Barnabas and Paul it is said, that they “fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them.” (Acts xiii. 3.) When St. Paul bids Timothy have regard to the graces conferred in his ordination, he observes that these were conferred by imposition of hands: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” (1 Tim. iv. 14.) And in his other Epistle he exhorts him to “stir up the gift of God which was in him by the putting on of his hands.” (2 Tim. i. 6.) The primitive Christians, following exactly after this copy, never admitted any into orders but with this ceremony: so that the ancient councils seldom use any other word for ordination than “imposition of hands;” and the ancient writers of the Church signify, that the clerical character, and the gifts of the Spirit, were conferred by this action.

It must be observed here, that the imposition of the bishop’s hand alone is required in the ordination of a deacon, in conformity to the usage of the ancient Church.—Dr. Nicholls.

This was always a distinction between the three superior and five inferior orders, that the first were given by imposition of hands, and the second were not.—Dr. Burn.