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INCURABILITY, n. s.`
INCURABLE, adj.
INCU'RABLENESS, n. s.
INCU'RABLY, adv.
INCURIOUS, adj.

Johnson's Rambler.

Fr. incurabilité;
Latin in and curo.
Impossibility

of

cure: remediless;
not to be removed

by medicine: these words are used principally
with reference to bodily disease; but also in a
figurative sense, as descriptive of any state which
is beyond remedy incurious is negligent; in-
attentive.

If I bide here, life can I not sustain;
If I go hence my peines be incurable:
Where him to finde, I knowe no place certain;
And thus I ne wote, of these things twain,
Whiche I maie take, and which I maie refuse,
My hert is wounded, heron to think or muse.

Chaucer. Lament of Mary Magdaleine.
Pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be ministered,
Or overthrow incurable ensues.

Stop the rage betime,

Shakspeare.

Before the wound do grow incurable;
For being green, there is great hope of help. Id.
We'll instantly open a door to the manner of a
proper and improper consumption, together with the

reason of the incurability of the former, and facile care
of the other.
Harvey.
No man withholds thee, nothing from thy hand
Fear I incurable; bring up thy van;
My heels are fettered, but my fist is free.

Milton. Samson Agonistes.
We cannot know it is or is not, being incurably
Locke.
ignorant.
A schirrus is not absolutely incurable, because it has
been known that fresh pasture has cured it in cattle.
Arbuthnot.

The Creator did not bestow so much skill upon his creatures, to be looked upon with a careless incurious Derham. eye.

He seldom at the park appeared;
Yet, not incurious, was inclined

To know the converse of mankind.

Swift.

If idiots and lunaticks cannot be found, incurables may be taken into the hospital.

But ah! what woes remain! life rolls apace
And that incurable disease old age,

In youthful bodies more severely felt,

More sternly active, shakes their blasted prime.

INCURVATION, n. s.

INCUR VATE, v. a.

INCUR'VITY, N.S.

Id.

Armstrong.

Lat. incurvo. The

act of bending; the

state of being bent;

flexion of the body in token of reverence: to crook a change from a straight line.

One part moving while the other rests, one would think, should cause an incurvation in the line.

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I'll look to like, if looking liking move;
But no more deep will I indart mine eye,
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Shakspeare.

INDEBT, v. a. Į Lat. in and debeo. To INDEBTED, adj. put into debt; to oblige or put under obligation: indebted, obliged by something received; bound to restitution; having incurred a debt. It has to before the person to whom the debt is due, and for before the thing received.

Forgive us our sins, for we forgive every one that is indebted to us Luke xi. 4.

If the course of politick affairs cannot in any good course go forward without fit instruments, and that

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INDEFINITE, adj.
INDEFINITELY, adv.
INDEFINITUDE, n. s.

Sanderson.

Fr. indefini; Italian indefinite; Lat. indefinitus. Not determined

Wilful perpetration of unworthy actions brands with indelible characters the name and memory.

King Charles. They are indued with indelible power from above to feed, to govern this household, and to consecrate pastors and stewards of it to the world's end. Sprut. Thy heedless sleeve will drink the coloured oil, And spot indelible thy pocket soil. Gay's Trivia. INDEL'ICACY, n. s. ? Latin in and deliciæ; INDEL'ICATE, adj. Shence delicatus. Wart of decency; coarseness of appearance or manner inelegant. See DELICACY.

Your papers would be chargeable with worse than indelicacy, they would be immoral, did you treat detestable uncleanness as you rally an impertinent selfAddison. love.

INDEMNIFICATION, n. s.
INDEMNIFY, v. a.
INDEMNITY, n. s.

Fr. indemnité; Ital. in

S demnita; in,

and Lat. damno. Security against loss; reimbursement of penalty or loss, and security from punishment: to preserve from injury.

I will use all means, both of amnesty and indem

or limited; undecided; large beyond humanity, which may most fully remove all fears, and bury all jealousies in forgetfulness. King Charles. Insolent signifies rude and haughty, indemnify to keep safe.

comprehension, although not absolutely without limits: quantity not limited or defined.

We observe that custom, whereunto St. Paul alludeth, and whereof the fathers of the church in their writings make often mention, to shew indefinitely what was done; but not universally to bind for ever all Hooker. prayers unto one only fashion of utterance.

Though a position should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of direction than an indefinite; as ashes are more generative than dust.

Bacon's Essays.

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Tragedy and picture are more narrowly circumscribed by place and time than the epick poem; and Dryden. the time of this last is left indefinite.

If the word be indefinitely extended, that is, so far as no human intellect can fancy any bounds of it, then Ray. what we see must be the least part.

Though it is not infinite, it may be indefinite; though it is not boundless in itself, it may be so to Spectator. human comprehension.

A duty to which all are indefinitely obliged, upon some occasions, by the expressed command of God.

Smalridge.

Watts.

Just laws, to be sure, and admirable equity, if a stranger is to collect a mob which is to set half Manchester on fire; and the burnt half is to come upon the other half for indemnity, while the stranger goes off unquestioned, by the stage!

INDENT, v. a., v. n. & n. s.
INDENTATION, n. s.
INDENTURE, n. s.

Canning. Fr. denté; Ital. indenture; Latin in and

dens; a tooth. To mark any thing with inequalities like a row of teeth; to cut in and out; to make a wave or undulate. Indent, from the method of cutting counterparts of a contract together, that, laid on each other, they may fit, and any want of conformity may discover a fraud; to contract; to bargain; to make a compact. Indent, inequality; incisure. Indentation, wav ing in any figure. Indenture, a covenant, so named because the counterparts are indented or cut one by the other; a contract of which there is a counterpart.

In Hall's chronicle much good matter is quite marred with indenture English.

Ascham's Schoolmaster. Trent shall not wind with such a deep indent. Shakspeare To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears, When they have lost and forfeited themselves?

About his neck

Fr. indeliberé. A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,

Id.

INDELIBERATE, adj. In and deliberate. Who with her head, nimble in threats, approached

INDELIBERATED.

Unpremeditated; done without consideration. Actions proceeding from blandishments, or sweet persuasions, if they be indeliberated, as in children, who want the use of reason, are not presently free Bramhall. actions.

The love of God better can consist with the indeli

berate commissions of many sins, than with an allowed persistance in any one. Government of the Tongue.

INDEL'IBLE, adj. Fr. indelebile; Lat. indelebilis. Not to be blotted out or effaced; not to be annulled.

The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
Seeing Orlando, unlinked itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush.

Id. As You Like It.
He descends into the solemnity of a pact and cove、
Decay of Piety.
nant, and has indented with us.
Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreads
Milton.
His thirty arms along the indented meads.

The serpent then, not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear
Circular base of rising folds, that towered
Fold above fold, a surging maze!

Id.

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Swift. French indepen dance; in, and Latin, dependeo.

ex

INDEPENDENCE, n, s. INDEPENDENCY, N. S. INDEPENDENT, adj. & n. s. INDEPENDENTLY, adv. emption from control: not depending; not supported by any other; not relying on another; not controlled. It is used with on, of, or from, the object; of which on seems most proper, since we say to depend on, and consequently dependent on not relating to any thing else as its superior. Independent, one who holds that every congregation is a complete church, subject, in religious matters, to no superior authority. Independently, without reference to other things or subjects.

We shall, in our sermons, take occasion to justify such passages in our liturgy as have been unjustly quarrelled at by presbyterians, independents, or other puritan sectaries.

Sanderson.

Dispose lights and shadows, without finishing every thing independently the one of the other. Dryden. Since all princes of independent governments are in a state of nature, the world never was without men in

that state.

Locke.

Creation must needs infer providence, and God's making the world irrefragably proves that he governs it too; or that a being of dependent nature remains nevertheless independent upon him in that respect.

South.

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INDEPENDENCY. Under the term BISHOP We have stated at considerable length the chief arguments in favor of the episcopal form of church government. It will be fair to add a more detailed statement of the principal arguments of the Independents in favor of their plan. In support of it, they observe, that the word EKKAnoia, translated church, is always used in Scripture to signify either a single congregation, or the place where a single congregation meets. Thus that unlawful assembly at Ephesus, brought together against Paul by the craftsmen, is called ɛr\ŋgia, a church. Acts xix. 32, 39, 41. The word, however, is generally applied to a more sacred use; but still it signifies either the body assembling, or the place in which it assembles. The whole body of the disciples at Corinth is called the church, and spoken of as coming together into one place. 1 Cor. xiv. 23. The place into which they came together has been likewise thought to be called a church. See 1 Cor. xi. 18, 20. Wherever there were more congregations than one there were likewise more churches than one. See 1 Cor. xi. 18. The whole nation of Israel is indeed called a church, but it was no more than a single congregation; for it had but one place of public worship, viz. first the tabernacle, and afterwards the temple. The Catholic church of Christ, his holy nation and kingdom, is also a single congregation, having one place of worship, viz. heaven, where all the members assemble by faith and bold communion; and in which, when they shall all be fully gathered together, they will in fact be one glorious assembly. We find it called 'the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.' The Independent can find no other description of a church in the New Testament; not a trace of a diocese or presbytery consisting of several congregations all subject to one jurisdiction. The number of disciples in Jerusalem was certainly great before they were dispersed by the persecution; yet they are never mentioned as forming distinct assemblies, but as one assembly meeting with its elders in one place; sometimes in the temple, sometimes in Solomon's porch, and sometimes in an upper room. After the dispersion the disciples who fled from Jerusalem, as they could no longer assemble in one place, are never called a church by themselves, or one church, but the churches of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee (Acts ix. 31, Gal. i. 22). Whence the Independents conclude that in Jerusalem the words church and congregation were of the same import; and if such was the case there, where the gospel was first preached, we may reasonably expect to find it so in other places. Thus, when Paul on his journey calls the elders of the church of Ephesus to Miletus, he speaks to them as the joint overscers of a single congregation. See Acts XX. 28. Had the church at Ephesus consisted of different congregations, united under such a jurisdiction as that of a modern presbytery, it would have been natural to say "Take heed to yourselves, and to the flocks over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers:' but this is a way of speaking of which the Independents find not an instance in the whole New Testament.

The sacred writers, when speaking of all the Christians in a nation or province, never call them the church of such a nation or province, but the churches of Galatia (Gal. i. 2), of Macedonia (2 Cor. viii. 1), and of Asia (1 Cor. xvi. 10). On the other hand, when speaking of the disciples in a city or town, who might ordinarily assemble in one place, they uniformly call them a church; saying the church of Antioch, the church at Corinth, the church of Ephesus, and the like.

In each of these churches or congregations there were elders or presbyters, and deacons; and in every church there seem to have been more than one elder, in some many, who 'labored in word and doctrine.' Thus we read (Acts xiv. 23) of Paul and Barnabas ordaining elders in every church; and (Acts xx. 17) of a company of elders in the church of Ephesus, who were exhorted to 'feed the flock, and to take heed to themselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers:' but of such elders as are to be found in modern. Presbyterian churches, who neither teach, nor are apt to teach, the Independents find no vestige in the Scriptures, nor in the earliest writers of the Christian church. The rule or government of this presbytery or eldership in a church is not their own, but Christ's. They are not lords over God's heritage, nor can they pretend to more power over the disciples than the apostles had. But when the administration of the apostles in the church of Jerusalem, and other churches where they acted as elders, is enquired into by an Independent, it does not appear to him that they did any thing of common concern to the church, without the consent of the multitude: nay, it seems they thought it necessary to judge and determine in discipline in presence of the whole church (Acts vi 1, 6; xv. 22; 1 Cor. v. 3, 4, 5).

Excommunication and absolution were in the power of the church at Corinth, and not of the elders, as distinguished from the congregation (1 Cor. v., 2 Cor. ii.) The apostle indeed speaks of his delivering some unto Satan (1 Tim. i. 20), but it is by no means clear that he did it by himself, and not after the manner pointed at, 1 Cor. v. 4, 5; even as it does not appear, from his saying, in one epistle, that the gift was given unto Timothy by the putting on of his hands, that this was not done in the presbytery of a church, as in the other epistle we find it actually was. The trying and judging of false apostles was a matter of the first importance: but it was done by elders with the flock at Ephesus (Rev. ii. 2; Acts xx. 28-30); which flock did in the days of Ignatius all partake of the Lord's supper, and pray together in one place. Even the power of binding and loosing, or the power of the keys, as it has been called, was by our Saviour conferred not upon a particular order of disciples, but upon the church. See Matt. xviii. 15, 16, 17, 18. It is not said, if he shall neglect to hear the one or two, tell it to the elders of the church; far less can it be meant that the offended person should tell the cause of his offence to all the disciples in a presbytery or diocese consisting of many congregations: but he is required VOL. XI.

to tell it to that particular church or congregation to which they both belong; and the sentence of that assembly, pronounced by its elders, is in a very solemn manner declared to be final, from which there lies no appeal to any jurisdiction on earth.

With respect to the constituting of elders in any church or congregation, the Independent reasons as follows. The officers of Christ's appointment are either ordinary and permanent in the church, or they were extraordinary and peculiar to the planting of Christianity. The extraordinary officers were employed in laying the plan of the gospel churches, and in publishing the New Testament revelation. Such were the apostles, the chosen witnesses of our Saviour's resurrection; such were the prophets inspired by the Holy Ghost for explaining infallibly the Old Testament by the things written in the New; and such were the evangelists, the apostle's ministers. These can be succeeded by none in that which was peculiar to them, because their work was completed by themselves. But they are succeeded in all that was not peculiar to them by elders and deacons, the only two ordinary and permanent orders of ministers in the church. We have already seen that it belongs to the office of the elder to feed the flock of Christ; and the only question to be settled is, how men are ordinarily called to that office; for about the office of the deacon there is little or no dispute. No man now can pretend to be so called of God to the ministry of the word as the apostles and other inspired elders were, whom he chose to be the publishers of his revealed truth, and to whose mission he bore witness in an extraordinary manner.

But what the apostles were to those who had the divine oracles from their mouths, that their writings are to us: and therefore, as no man can lawfully pretend a call from God to make any addition to those writings, so neither can any man pretend to be lawfully called to the ministry of the word already written, but in the manner which that word directs. Now there is nothing of which the New Testament speaks more clearly than of the characters of those who should exercise the office of elders in the church, and of the actual exercise of that office. The former are graphically drawn in the epistles to Timothy and Titus; and the latter is minutely described in Paul's discourse to the Ephesian elders, in Peter's exhortation to elders, and our Lord's commission to those ministers with whom he promised to be always present even unto the end of the world. It is not competent for any man or body of men to add to, or diminish from, the description of a gospel minister given in these places, so as to insist upon the necessity of any qualification which is not there mentioned, or to dispense with any qualification as needless which is there required. Neither has Jesus Christ, the only legislator to the church, given to any ministers or people any power or right whatsoever to call, send, elect, or ordain, to that office, any person who is not qualified according to the description given in his law. Let a man have hands laid upon him by such as could prove an uninterrupted descent by imposition of hands

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