IGNORANCE, the want of knowledge or instruction. It is often used to denote illiteracy. Mr. Locke observes, that the causes of ignorance are chiefly three.-1. Want of ideas.-2. Want of a discoverable connection between the ideas we have.-3. Want of tracing and examining our ideas. As it respects religion, ignorance has been distinguished into three sorts: 1. An invincible ignorance, in which the will has no part. It is an insult upon justice to suppose it will punish men because they were ignorant of things which they were physically incapable of knowing.-2. There is a wilful and obstinate ignorance; such an ignorance, far from exculpating, aggravates a man's crimes.-3. A sort of ignorance which is neither entirely wilful, nor entirely invincible; as when a man has the means of knowledge, and does not use them. See KNOWLEDGE; and Locke on the Und. vol. ii. p. 178; Grove's Mor. Phil. vol. ii. p. 26, 29, 64. Watts on the Mind.

view, has excited most nations to banish || H. Jackson's Works, vol. i. p. 153; them. Besides, the whole people are Neale's History of the Jews; Pirie's now a race of such merchants as are Posth. Works, vol. i. Fuller's Serm, on wanderers by profession; and at the the Messiah. same time are în most, if not in all places, incapable of either lands or offices, that might engage them to make any part of the world their home. In addition to this, we may consider what providential reasons may be assigned for their numbers and dispersion. Their firm adherence to their religion, and being dispersed all over the earth, has furnished every age and every nation with the strongest arguments for the Christian faith; not only as these very particulars are foretold of them, but as they themselves are the depositaries of these and all other prophecies which tend to their own confusion and the establishment of Christianity. Their number furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible, and their dispersion spreads these witnesses through all parts of the world. 6. Jews, restoration of-From the declarations of Scripture we have reason to suppose the Jews shall be called to a participation of the blessings of the ILLUMINATI, a term anciently apGospel, Rom. xi. 2 Cor. iii. 16. Hos. i. 11. and some suppose shall return to plied to such as had received baptism. their own land, Hos. iii. 5. Is. lxv. 17, The name was occasioned by a ceremo&c. Ezek. xxxvi. As to the time, some ny in the baptism of adults, which conthink about 1866 or 2016; but this, per- sisted in putting a lighted taper in the haps, is not so easy to determine alto-hand of the person baptized, as a symgether, though it is probable it will not bol of the faith and grace he had rebe before the fall of Antichrist and the ceived in the sacrament. ILLUMINATI was also the name of Ottoman empire. Let us, however, avoid putting stumbling-blocks in their a sect which appeared in Spain about way. If we attempt any thing for their the year 1575. They were charged with conversion, let it be with peace and maintaining that mental prayer and love. Let us, says one, propose Christi- contemplation had so intimately united anity to them as Christ proposed it to them to God, that they were arrived to them. Let us lay before them their own such a state of perfection, as to stand in prophecies. Let us show them their ac- no need of good works, or the sacracomplishment in Jesus. Let us applaudments of the church, and that they their hatred of idolatry. Let us show might commit the grossest crimes withthem the morality of Jesus in our lives out sin. and tempers. Let us never abridge their civil liberty, nor ever try to force their consciences. Josephus's History of the Jews; Spect. No. 495. vol. iv. Levi's Ceremonies of the Jewish Religion; Buxtorf de Synagoga Judaica; Spencer de Legibus Heb. Rit. Newton on Proph. Warburton's Address to the Jews, in the Dedication of the 2d vol of his Legation; Sermons preached to the Jews at Berry-street, by Dr. Haweis and others; Basnage's and Orckley's Hist. of the Jews; Shaw's Philosophy of Judaism; Hartley on Man, vol. ii. prop. 8. vol. iii. p. 455, 487; Bicheno's Restoration of the Jews; Jortin's Rem. on Ecc. Hist. vol. iii. p. 427, 447; Dr.

After the suppression of the Illuminati in Spain, there appeared a denomination in France which took the same name. They maintained that one Anthony Buckuet had a system of belief and practice revealed to him which exceeded every thing Christianity had yet been acquainted with: that by this method persons might in a short time arrive at the same degrees of perfection and glory to which the saints and the Blessed Virgin have attained; and this improvement might be carried on till our actions became divine, and our minds wholly given up to the influence of the Almighty. They said further, that none of the doctors of the church

other passions, which are more or less artificial representation of some person interested in the preservation of the or thing used as an object of adoration; discoveries and improvements in arts, in which sense it is used synonymously sciences, and their inseparable concom- with idol. The use and adoration of imaitant luxury, we are persuaded no man, ges have been long controverted. It is or body of men, who have enjoyed the plain, from the practice of the primitive sweets of civilized life, ever formed a church, recorded by the earlier fathers, serious wish for the total abolition of the that Christians, during the first three arts and sciences. In the fury and rage centuries, and the greater part of the of war, Goths, Vandals, and Turks, may fourth, neither worshipped images, nor burn and destroy monuments of art and used them in their worship. However, repositories of science; but when the the generality of the popish divines wars are over, instead of returning to || maintain that the use and worship of the savage state, the barbarous con-images are as ancient as the Christian querors mix and amalgamate with the religion itself: to prove this, they allege Conquered, and become themselves a decree, said to have been made in a more or less civilized. Dr. Weishaupt council held by the apostles at Antioch, is allowed to be influenced by a high de- commanding the faithful, that they may gree of vanity; as an evidence of which not err about the object of their worhe communicates as the last secret to ship, to make images of Christ, and his most favoured adepts, that the mys-worship them. Baron. ad. ann. 102. But teries of ILLUMINISM, which, in going || no notice is taken of this decree till through the inferior degrees, had been seven hundred years after the apostolic successively attributed to the most an- times, after the dispute about images cient patriarchs and philosophers, and had commenced. The first instance that even to Christ himself, owed its origin occurs, in any credible author, of imato no other than Adam Weishaupt, ges among Christians, is that recorded known in the order by the name of Spar- by Tertullian de Pudicit. c. 10, of certacus. The same vanity which leads the tain cups or chalices, as Bellarmine predoctor to take this traditional method, tends, on which was represented the while secrecy is deemed necessary, of parable of the good shepherd carrying securing to himself the honour of having the lost sheep on his shoulders: but this founded the society, would lead him, instance only proves that the church, at were the Illuminati actually victorious that time, did not think emblematical over all religions and governments, to figures unlawful ornaments of chalices. wish to have his memory recorded in a Another instance is taken from Eusemore durable manner by writing or bius (Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 18,) who printing. But if these and all the other says, that in his time there were to be arts were to perish in a mass, then the seen two brass statues in the city of Pamemory of the doctor, and the important neas, or Cæsarea Philippi; the one of a services he had done to the order and woman on her knees, with her arm to savagism, must, within a century at stretched out; the other of a man over the utmost, perish along with them. But against her, with his hand extended to if, in fact, the total annihilation of the receive her: these statues were said to arts and sciences, as well as of all reli- || be the images of our Saviour, and the gion and government, be really the ob- woman whom he cured of an issue of ject of Weishaupt and his Illuminees, blood. From the foot of the statue rethen we may agree with the celebrated presenting our Saviour, says the histoMandeville, that "human nature is the rian, sprung up an exotic plant, which true Libyan desert, daily producing as soon as it grew to touch the border of new monsters," and that of these mon-his garment, was said to cure all sorts of sters the doctor and his associates are distempers. Eusebius, however, vouches beyond a doubt the most extraordinary. none of these things; nay, he supposes Professor Robison informs us, that "the that the woman who erected this statue order of the Illuminati was abolished in of our Saviour was a pagan, and ascribes 1786 by the elector of Bavaria, but re-it to a pagan custom. Philostorgius vived immediately after, under another (Eccl. Hist. lib. vii. c. 3.) expressly says, name, and in a different form, all over that this statue was carefully preserved Germany. It was again detected and by the Christians, but that they paid seemingly broken up; but it had by this no kind of worship to it, because it time taken so deep root, that it still sub-is not lawful for Christians to worship sists without being detected, and has spread we are told, into all the countries of Europe.

IMAGE, in a religious sense, is an

brass, or any other matter. The primítive Christians abstained from the worship of images, not, as the Papists pretend, from tenderness to heathen idola

idolaters: nor can these last keep pace with the Greeks, who go far beyond them in this point, which has occasioned abundance of disputes among them. See ICONOCLASTES. The Jews absolutely condemn all images, and do not so much as suffer any statues or figures in their houses, much less in their synagogues, or places of worship. The Mahometans have an equal aversion to images; which led them to destroy most of the beautiful monuments of antiquity, both sacred and profane, at Constantinople.Bingham's Orig. Eccl. b. viii. c. 8. "Middleton's Letters from Rome, p. 21. Burnet on the Art. p. 209, 219. Doddridge's Lect. lec. 193. Tennison on Idolatry, p. 269, 275. Ridgely's Body of Div. qu. 110.

IMAGE OF GOD in the soul, is distinguished into natural and moral. By natural is meant the understanding, reason, will, and other intellectual faculties. By the moral image, the right use of those faculties, or what we term holiness.

ters, but because they thought it unlawful in itself to make any images of the Deity. Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, were of opinion, that, by the second commandment, painting and engraving were unlawful to a Christian, styling them evil and wicked arts. Tert. de Idol. cap. 3. Clem. Alex. Admon. ad Gent. p. 41. Origen contra Celsum, lib. vi. p. 182. The use of images in churches, as ornaments, was first introduced by some Christians in Spain, in the beginning of the fourth century; but the practice was condemned as a dangerous innovation, in a council held at Eliberis, in 305. Epiphanius, in a letter preserved by Jerome, tom. ii. ep. 6, bears strong testimony against images; and he may be considered as one of the first iconoclasts. The custom of admitting pictures of saints and martyrs into churches (for this was the first source of image worship) was rare in the end of the fourth century, but became common in the fifth. But they were still considered only as ornaments, and, IMAGINATION is a power or faeven in this view, they met with very culty of the mind, whereby it conceives considerable opposition. In the follow- and forms ideas of things communicated ing century, the custom of thus adorning to it by the outward organs of sense; or churches became almost universal, both it is the power of recollecting and asin the East and West. Petavius ex-sembling images, and of painting forpressly says (de Incar. lib. xv. cap. 14.) that no statues were yet allowed in the churches, because they bore too near a resemblance to the idols of the Gentiles. Towards the close of the fourth, or beginning of the fifth century, images. which were introduced by way of ornament, and then used as an aid to devo tion began to be actually worshipped. However, it continued to be the doctrine of the church in the sixth, and inders of creation and revelation; for every the beginning of the seventh century, that images were to be used only as helps to devotion, and not as objects of worship. The worship of them was condemned in the strongest terms by Gregory the Great, as appears by two of his letters written in 601. From this time to the beginning of the eighth century, there occurs no instance of any worship given, or allowed to be given to images, by any council or assembly of bishops whatever. But they were commonly worshipped by the monks and populace in the beginning of the eighth century; insomuch, that in 726, when Leo published his famous edict, it had already spread into all the provinces subject to the empire. The Lutherans condemn the Calvinists for breaking the images in the churches of the Catholics, looking on it as a kind of sacrilege; and yet they condemn the Romanists (who are professed image-worshippers) as

cibly those images on our minds, or on the minds of others. The cause of the pleasures of the imagination in whatever is great, uncommon, or beautiful, is this; that God has annexed a secret pleasure to the idea of any thing that is new or rare, that he might encourage and stimulate us in the eager and keen pursuits after knowledge, and inflame our best passions to search into the won

new idea brings such a pleasure along with it, as rewards any pains we have taken in its acquisition, and consequently serves as a striking and powerful motive to put us upon fresh discoveries in learning and science, as well as in the word and works of God. See Rev. W. Jones's Works, vol. vi. ser. 17; Ryland's Contemplations, vol. i. p. 64; Akenside's Pleasure's of Imagination; Addison's beautiful papers on the Imagination, vol. vi. Spect. p. 64, &c. Grove's Mor. Phil. p. 354, 355, 410, vol. i.

IMMATERIALISM, the belief that the soul is a spiritual substance distinct from the body. See MATERIALISM and SOUL.

IMMENSITY, unbounded or incomprehensible greatness; and unlimited extension, which no finite and determinate space, repeated ever so often, can equal. See INFINITY of God.

IMMORALITY, an action incon

which we adore, 2 Cor. iii. 18; and, lastly, should excite trust and confidence in the Divine Being, amidst all the revolutions of this uncertain world." Blair's Sermons, ser. 4. vol. ii.; Charnock's Works, vol. i. p. 203; Gill's Body of Div., vol. i. p. 50; Lambert's Sermons, ser. on Mal iii. 6.

IMPANATION, a term used by divines to signify the opinion of the Lutherans with regard to the eucharist, who believe that the species of bread and wine remain together with the body of our Saviour after consecration.

IMPECCABILES, a name given to those heretics who boasted that they were impeccable, and that there was no need of repentance; such were the Gnostics, Priscillianists, &c.

in consequence of their condition, &c.

IMMUTABILITY OF GOD, is his unchangeableness. He is immutable in his essence, James i. 17. In his attributes, Ps. cii. 27. In his purposes, Isa. xxv. 1. Ps. xxxiii. 11. In his promises, Mal. iii. 6. 2 Tim.ii.12. And in his threatenings, Matt. xxv. 41. "This is a perfection,' says Dr. Blair, "which, perhaps more IMPECCABILITY, the state of a than any other, distinguishes the divine person who cannot sin; or a grace, nature from the human, gives complete privilege, or principle, which puts him energy to all its attributes, and entitles out of a possibility of sinning. Divines it to the highest adoration. From hence have distinguished several kinds of imare derived the regular order of nature, peccability; that of God belongs to him and the steadfastness of the universe. by nature: that of Jesus Christ, consiHence flows the unchanging tenor of dered as man, belongs to him by the those laws which from age to age regu-hypostatical union; that of the blessed, late the conduc of mankind. Hence the uniformity of that government, and the certainty of those promises, which are the ground of our trust and security. An objection, however, may be raised against this doctrine, from the commands given us to prayer, and other religious exercises. To what purpose, it may be urged, is homage addressed to a Being whose plan is unalterably fixed? This objection would have weight, if our religious addresses were designed to work any alteration in God, either by giving him information of what he did not know, or by exciting affections which he did not possess; or by inducing him to change measures which he had previously formed: but they are only crude and imperfect notions of religion which can suggest such ideas. The change which our devotions are intended to make, are upon ourselves, not upon the Almighty. By pouring out our sentiments and desires before God, by adoring his perfections, and confessing our unworthiness; by expressing our dependence on his aid; our gratitude for his past favours, our submission to his present will, and our trust in his future mercy, we cultivate such affections as suit our place and station in the universe, and are to be exercised by us as men and as Christians. The contemplation of this divine perfection should raise in our minds admiration; should teach us to imitate, as far as our frailty will perInit, that constancy and steadfastness

IMPLICIT FAITH, is that by which we take up any system or opinion of another without examination. This has been one of the chief sources of ignorance and error in the church of Rome. the divines of that community teach, "That we are to observe, not how the church proves any thing, 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." What madness! what blasphemy! For a church to demand belief of what she teaches, and a submission to what she enjoins, merely upon her assumed authority, must appear to unprejudiced minds the height of unreasonableness and spiritual despotism. We could wish this doctrine had been confined to this church; but, alas! it has been too