their inclinations and piuposes, are from ignorance OT inconstancy, and therefore this quality is no way com- patible with the .glory and attributes of God" (Char- nock, On the Divine Attributes),
"A^arious speculations on the divine immutability occur in the writings of divines and others, Avhich, though often well intended, ought to be received with caution, and sometimes even rejected as bewildering or pernicious. Such are the notions that God knows ev- erything by intuition; that there is no succession of ideas in the divine mmd; that he can receive no new idea ; that there are no affections in God, for to suppose this woidd imply that he is capable of emotion ; that if there are affections in God, as love, hatred, etc., they always exist in the same degree, or else he would suffer change: for these and similar speculations, reference may be had to the schoohnen and metaphysicians by those who are curious in such subjects ; but the impres- sion of the divine character, thus represented, will be found very different from that conveyed by those in- spired Avritings in which God is not spoken of by men, but speaks of himself; and nothing could be more easily shown than that most of these notions are either idle, as assuming that we know more of God than is reveal- ed; or such as tend to represent the divine Being as rather a necessary than a free agent, and his moral per- fections as resulting from a blind physical necessity of nature more than from an essential moral excellence; or, finally, as unintelligible or absmd. The true immu- tability of God consists, not in his adherence to his pur- poses, but in his never changing the ptrinciples of his administration; and he may therefore, in perfect ac- cordance with his preordination of thuigs, and the im- mutability of his nature, purpose to do, under certain conditions dependent upon the free agency of man, what he wiU not do under others ; and for this reason, that an immutable adherence to the jninciples of a wise, just, and gracious government requires it. Prayer is m Scripture made one of these conditions ; and if God has established it as one of the principles of his moral gov- ernment to accept prayer in every case in which he has given us authority to ask, he has not, we maj' be as- sined, entangled his actual government of the world with the bonds of such an eternal predestination of par- ticular events as either to reduce prayer to a mere form of words, or not to be able himself, consistently M'ith his decrees, to answer it, whenever it is encouraged by his express engagements." See Watson, Institutes, i, 401 ; ii, 492 ; Perrone, Tractatus de Deo, part ii, ch. ii • Knapp, Theology, § 20 ; Graves, Worls, iii. 283 ; Dorner, in Jahr- buch f. deutsche Theoloyie, 18bd, 18G0 (see Index). See also Attributes ; God.
Im'na and Im'nah, the name of several men, of different form in the original, which is not accurately observed in the English Version.
1. Hebrew Yijixa' (S^^^, restrainer ; Sept. 'Ifiavci, Yulg. Jemna, Auth. Vers. "Imna"), one of the sons ap- parently of Helem, the brother of Shamer, a descendant of Asher, but at what distance is not clear (1 Chron. vii, 35). B.C. prob. cir. 1618. See Hotiiam.
2. Hebrew YiJiNAii' {i-ii'Ci\ fortunate; Sept. in Gen. xlvi, 17, 'If/jvd, Yulg. Jamne, Auth. Yers. " Jimnah ;" in Numb, xxvi, 44, 'la^iip and 'lajjivi, Jemna and Jem- naita, " Jimna" and '• Jimnites ;" in 1 Chron. vii, 30, 'Ifyu- vc't, Jemna, "Imnah"), the first-named of the sons of Asher, and founder of a familv who bore his name. B. C. 1874.
3. (Same Hebrew name as last; Sept. 'If/xo/a, Yulg. J^e77i7W, Auth.Vers. "Imnah"). The father of Kore, which latter was the Levite in charge of the east gate of the Temple, and appointed by Hezekiah over the free-will offerings (2 Chron. xxxi,"l4). B. C. 726.
Impanation (Latin, impanatio ; from in and pants,
bread; otherwise assumptio), a name given to one of
the many different shades of the doctrine of the real
I presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucha-
I^IPECCABILES
521
IMPOSITIOX OF HANDS
rist. The theory was first presented in the 12th cen- tury bj' Kuprecht of Deutz in the following shape (Op- era ed. Col. 1G02, i, 267; Comni. in Exod. ii, 10): "As God did not alter human nature when he incarnated divinity in the womb of the Virgin Mary, uniting the Word and the flesh into one bemg, so he does not alter the substance of the bread and the wine in the Eucha- rist, which still retain the material properties by which they are known to our senses (sensibus subacfiim), while by his '\\'()rd he brings them (the component elements) into coniliiuation with the identical body and the iden- tical bldod of Christ, As the Word descended from on high (d siimiiw), not to hci-cmie llesh, but to assume the flesh (as.mmen/Io can/i-ni). so arc the bread and wine, from their inferior {nh ium) iiosiiion, raised into becom- ing flesh and blood of Christ, -without, therefore, being transmuted {iion mutatum) in such a manner as to ac- . quire the taste of flesh or the appearance of blood, but do, on the contrary, imperceptibly become identical with both in their essence, partaking of the tlivine and human immortal substance, which is in Christ. It is not the effect of the Holy Ghost's operation {ajfedus) to alter or destroy the nature of any sulistance used for his purpose, but, on the contrary, to add to that substance some qualities which it did not at first possess" {De 0pp. Spirit, s. iii, p. 21, 22). In his work De divinis Offi- ciis (ii, 9 ; 0pp. ii, 762), he says : " The Word of the Fa- ther comes in between the flesh and the blood which he received from the womb of the Virgin, and the bread and wine received from the altar, and of the two makes a joint offering. When the priest puts this into the mouth of tlie believer, bread and wine are received, and are absorlied into the body; but the Son of the Virgin remains wliole and unabsorbed in the receiver, united to the Word of the Father in heaven. Such as do not believe, on the contrary, receive only the material bread and wine, but none of the offering." His contemporary, Alger, or Adelher, of Liittich, writing in defense of the dogma of transubstantiation (1. iii, De sacrum, corp. et satif). D. in BihI. Max. Pair. t. xxi, Lugdun. 1677), was the first to make use of the expression iiiipanatio in this sense (p. 251), " In pane Christum impanatinn sicut De- uni in carne personaliter incarnatum." Before him, however, Guitmund of Aversa had, in 1190, used the same wonl to express the probable meaning of Berengar (Bibl. ^[((.r. Pair. Lugdun. xviii, 441), whose supporters are sometimes called Adessenurii (q. v.) (from ad€sse,X.o be present).