A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

IMPROPRIATION. Ecclesiastical property, the profits of which are in the hands of a layman; thus distinguished from appropriation, which is when the profits of a benefice are in the hands of a college, &c. Impropriations have arisen from the confiscation of monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., when, instead of restoring the tithes to ecclesiastical uses, they were given to rapacious laymen. Archbishop Laud exerted himself greatly to buy up impropriations.

IMPUTATION. The attributing a character to a person which he does not really possess; thus, when in holy baptism we are justified, the righteousness is imputed as well as imparted to us. The imputation which respects our justification before God, is God’s gracious reckoning of the righteousness of Christ to believers, and his acceptance of these persons as righteous on that account; their sins being imputed to him, and his obedience being imputed to them. Rom. iv. 6, 7; v. 18, 19; 2 Cor. v. 21. (See Faith and Justification.)

INCARNATION. The act whereby the Son of God assumed the human nature; or the mystery by which the Eternal Word was made man, in order to accomplish the work of our salvation.

The doctrine of the incarnation as laid down in the third General Council, that of Ephesus, (A. D. 431,) is as follows:—“The great and holy synod (of Nice) said, that he ‘who was begotten of the Father, as the only-begotten Son by nature; who was true God of true God, Light of light, by whom the Father made all things; that he descended, became incarnate, and was made man, suffered, rose on the third day, and ascended into the heavens.’ These words and doctrines we ought to follow, in considering what is meant by the Word of God being ‘incarnate and made man.’

“We do not say that the nature of the Word was converted and became flesh; nor that it was changed into perfect man, consisting of body and soul: but rather, that the Word, uniting to himself personally flesh, animated by a rational soul, became man in an ineffable and incomprehensible manner, and became the Son of man, not merely by will and affection, nor merely by the assumption of one aspect or appearance; but that different natures were joined in a real unity, and that there is one Christ and Son, of two natures; the difference of natures not being taken away by their union.... It is said also, that he who was before all ages and begotten of the Father, was ‘born according to the flesh, of a woman:’ not as if his Divine nature had taken its beginning from the Holy Virgin ... but because for us, and for our salvation, he united personally to himself the nature of man, and proceeded from a woman; therefore he is said to be ‘born according to the flesh.’... So also we say that he ‘suffered and rose again,’ not as if God the Word had suffered in his own nature the stripes, the nails, or the other wounds; for the Godhead cannot suffer, as it is incorporeal: but because that which had become his own body suffered, he is said to suffer those things for us. For he who was incapable of suffering was in a suffering body. In like manner we understand his ‘death.’... Because his own body, by the grace of God, as Paul saith, tasted death for every man, he is said to suffer death,” &c.

INCENSE. The use of incense in connexion with the eucharist was unknown in the Church until the time of Gregory the Great, in the latter part of the sixth century. It then became prevalent in the Church, but has been long disused by the Church of England.—Bingham.

INCOMPREHENSIBLE. In the Athanasian Creed it is said, that “the Father is incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible;” which means that the Father is illimitable, the Son illimitable, the Holy Ghost illimitable. At the time when this creed was translated, the word incomprehensible was not confined to the sense it now bears, of inconceivable, or beyond the reach of our understanding; but it then meant, not comprehended within limits.

INCORRUPTICOLÆ, or Aphthartodocetæ, or Phantasiastæ. Heretics who had their original at Alexandria, in the time of the emperor Justinian. The beginning of the controversy was among the Eutychians, whether the body of Christ was corruptible or incorruptible from his conception: Severus held it corruptible; Julian of Halicarnassus held the contrary, that our Lord’s body was not obnoxious to hunger, thirst, or weariness; and that he did but seemingly suffer such things; from whence they were called Phantasiastæ. The emperor Justinian, in the very end of his reign, favoured these heretics, and persecuted the orthodox.

INCUMBENT. He who is in present possession of a benefice.

INDEPENDENTS. Like the Presbyterians, the Independents sprang from Puritanism, and were originally formed in Holland, about the year 1610, but their distinguishing doctrine seems to have been previously maintained in England by the Brownists, who were banished, or emigrated, in 1593.