In conclusion, there is left to us only the present at- titude of the Koman pontiff", who, since his declaration of infallibility, more than ever, is forced into a position which puts the matter of papal infallibility in a disa- greeable dilemma and dualism. " The decree of Pius IX is in opposition to the express declarations of pre- ceding pontiff's; pope is arrayed against pope; infalli- bility is discordant with infallibility. Not only has ' a probable opinion become improbable,' but Peter's chair is divided against itself; and how, then, can that king- dom stand? The Jansenist Launoy, in his Prcpscrip- tions, has collected the opinions adverse to. or irrecon- cilable with the dogma, of seven of the successors of St. Peter, who never change. From pope Leo (440-461), the greatest and most learned of the early bishops of Eome, he cites four passages in which Leo declares that Christ alone ' was innocent in his birth,' alone was 'free from original sin,' and that Christ received from his mother ' her nature, but not her fault ;' and he as- serts that Mary obtained ' her own purification thxmr/h her conception of Christ ' This is whoUy averse to the dogma. Innocent III, who called the Lateran Council hi 1213, in a sermon on the 'Assumption of Christ,' com- paring Eve and Mary, writes : ' Ilia fuit sine culpa pro- ducta, sed in culpa produxit; heec autem fuit in culpa
producfa, sed sine culpa produxit.' Gregory says (590- 604), ' John the Baptist was conceived in sin ; Christ cdone was conceived without sin.' Innocent V (1276), in his Commentary on the blaster ofi Sentences : 'Non convenit tantse Virgini ut diu morata sit in peccato ;' and he adds that she was sanctified quickly after the animation (that is, of the body by the soul), although not in the very moment. This is directly against the dogma. John XXII or Benedict XII (c. 1340) says that Mary 'passed at first ^/"rom a state of orifjiual sin to a state of grace.' Clement VI (1342-52), ' I suppose, ac- cording to the common opinion as yet, that the bless- ed Virgin was in original sin' modica morula, ' because, according to all, she was sanctified as soon as she could be sanctified.^
" Thus the papacy, in committing itself to this new and idolatrous dogma, is in hostility to Scripture, to universal consent, and also to itself. It explains the sense of Scripture by tradition; and it explains the sense of tradition by an infallible expositor, and that infallible expositor contradicts itself. The new dogma makes the ichole of the early Church to have been igno- rant of a truth which is now declared to be necessarj' to the faith ; it makes Leo, Innocent III, Innocent V, and Clement V to have taught heresy ; it puts the greatest scholastic divines under the ban; and, while doing this, it declares that what is now decreed has always been of the faith of the Chiurch, and that it is a part of the rev- elation of God, given through Christ and the apostles, and handed down bj' constant succession and general consent."
See Smith, in Meth. Qu. Rev. April, 1855; Christian Remembrancer, Oct. 1855, p. 419 ; Jan. 1866, p. 175 ; July, 1868, p. 134; Westminster Rev. April, 1867, p. 155 sq.; Ffoulkes, Christendom's Divisions, i, 103; Neander, Chr. Doymas, ii, 599 ; Haag, Ilist. des Dogmes Chretiennes, i, 291 sq., 435 sq. ; Cramp, Text-book- of Popery, p. 104 sq.; Milman, Za^ Christianity, y>.S, 208; Fieuss, Die romische Lehre v. d. unhefleclden Kmjfdngniss a. d. Quellen dai- gestellf u. a Goit'es Wort widerlegt (Berlin, 1865) ; Blunt, Theol. Encyclop. i, 328 sq. See also Mary ; Mariola-
TKV.
Immaculate-Conception Oath is among the Eoman Catholics the assurance by oath of a belief in and support of the doctrine of the immaculate concep- tion of the Virgin INIary. It was introduced by the Sorbonne in consequence of the disputes on this subject between the Franciscans and Dominicans [see Ijijiac- ULATE Conception], as a test oath for admission to an academical degree. The Jesuits made this a test oath also for other privileges. — Theol. Univ. Lex. i, 404. (J. H.W.)
Immanent Activity of God, the pantheistical tenet that God does not exist outside of the world, as a free personal (transcendental) being, but inside of it, as the highest unity of the world, because God camiot, ac- cording to it, be conceived of without the world. Saisset {Mod. Pantheism, ii, 91) thus sums it up: "He (God) creates the world within himself, and thenceforth there is no separation of the Creator and the creature, for the creature is still the Creator considered in his eternal and necessary action." See Pantheism.
Imman'uel (Heb. Immanuel', ?X^:5|S, sometimes separately hVi ^553", God icith us, as it is interpreted Matt, i, 23, where it is written E;Ujwavoi)/;X, as in the Sept., and Anglicized " Emmanuel ;" the Sept. however, in Isa. viii, 8, translates it jxi^' yfiwv o Biug ; Vulg. Em- manuer),?L figurative name prescribed through the proph- et for a child that should be bom as a sign to Ahaz of the speedy downfall of Syria (B.C. cir. 730 ; see 2 Kings xvi, 9) and violent interregnum of the kingdom of Is- rael (B.C, 737-728 ; see 2 Kuigs xv, 30 ; comp. xvii, 1), before the infant should become capable of distinguish- ing between wliolesome and improper kinds of food. The name occurs only in the celebrated verse of Isaiah (vii, 14), "Behold, a [rather the'] virgin shall conceive