RIGHTEOUSNESS, justice, holiness. The righteousness of God is the essential perfection of his nature; sometimes it is put for his justice. The righteousness of Christ denotes, not only his absolute perfection, but, is taken for his perfect obedience unto death, and his suffering the penalty of the law in our stead. The righteousness of the law is that obedience which the law requires. The righteousness of faith is the justification which is received by faith.

RIMMON. See [Naaman].

RINGS. The antiquity of rings appears from Scripture and from profane authors. Judah left his ring with Tamar, Gen. xxxviii, 18. When Pharaoh committed the government of Egypt to Joseph, he took his ring from his finger and gave it to Joseph, Gen. xli, 42. After the victory of the Israelites over the Midianites, they offered to the Lord the rings, the bracelets, and the golden necklaces, taken from the enemy, Num. xxxi, 50. The Israelitish women wore rings, not only on their fingers, but also in their nostrils and their ears. St. James distinguishes a man of wealth and dignity by the ring of gold on his finger, James ii, 2. At the return of the prodigal son, his father orders him to be dressed in a new suit of clothes, and to have a ring put on his finger, Luke xv, 22. When God threatened Jeconiah with the utmost effects of his anger, he tells him, that though he were the signet or ring on his finger, yet he should be torn off, Jer. xxii, 24. The ring was used chiefly to seal with, and Scripture generally assigns it to princes and great persons; as the king of Egypt, Joseph, Ahaz, Jezebel, King Ahasuerus, his favourite Haman, Mordecai, King Darius, 1 Kings xxi, 8; Esther iii, 10, &c; Dan. vi, 17. The patents and orders of these princes were sealed with their rings or signets, an impression from which was their confirmation. The ring was one mark of sovereign authority. Pharaoh gave his ring to Joseph, as a token of authority. When Alexander the Great gave his ring to Perdiccas, this was understood as nominating him his successor.

RIVER. The Hebrews give the name of “the river,” without any addition, sometimes to the Nile, sometimes to the Euphrates, and sometimes to Jordan. It is the tenor of the discourse that must determine the sense of this vague and uncertain way of speaking. They give also the name of river to brooks and rivulets that are not considerable. The name of river is sometimes given to the sea, Hab. iii, 8; Psalm lxxviii, 16. It is also used as a symbol for plenty, Job xxix, 6; Psalm xxxvi, 8.

ROCK. Palestine, being a mountainous country, had also many rocks, which formed a part of the country’s defence; for in time of danger the people retired to them, and found a refuge against any sudden irruption of the enemy. The Benjamites took shelter in the rock Rimmon, Judges xx, 47. Samson kept garrison in the rock of Etham, Judges xv, 8. David found shelter in the rocks of Maon, Engedi, &c, 1 Sam. xxii, 1; xxiii, 25, 28; xxiv, 2–5. Jerom says that the southern parts of Judea were full of caves under ground, and of caverns in the mountains, to which the people retired in time of danger. The Kenites dwelt in the hollow places of the rocks, Num. xxiv, 21. Even at this day the villages of this country are subterraneous, or in the rocks. Josephus in several places speaks of hollow rocks, where thieves and robbers had their haunts; and travellers still find a great number of them in Palestine, and in the adjoining provinces. Toward Lebanon, the mountains are high, but covered in many places with as much earth as fits them for cultivation. Among the crags of the rocks, the beautiful and far-famed cedar waves its lofty top, and extends its powerful arms, surrounded by the fir and the oak, the fig and the vine. On the road to Jerusalem, the mountains are not so lofty nor so rugged, but become fitter for tillage. They rise again to the south-east of Mount Carmel; are covered with woods, and afford very picturesque views; but advancing toward Judea, they lose their verdure, the valleys become narrow, dry, and stony, and terminate at the Dead Sea in a pile of desolate rocks, precipices, and caverns. These vast excavations, some of which will contain fifteen hundred men, are the grottoes of Engedi, which have been a refuge to the oppressed or the discontented in all ages. Westward of Jordan and the lake Asphaltites, another chain of rocks, still loftier and more rugged, presents a yet more gloomy aspect, and announces the distant entrance of the desert, and the termination of the habitable regions.

The name of rock is also given to God, by way of metaphor, because God is the strength, the refuge, and defence of Israel, as those places were to the people who resided among them, Psalm xviii, 2, 31; xxxi, 2, 3; Deut. xxxii, 15, 18, 30, 31; Psalm lxi, 2, &c.

ROD. This word is used sometimes for the branches of a tree: “And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree,” Gen. xxx, 37; sometimes for a staff or wand: “And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand,” Exod. iv, 17, 20; or for a shepherd’s crook: “And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod; the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord,” Lev. xxvii, 32; or for a rod, properly so called, which God makes use of to correct men: “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men,” 2 Sam. vii, 14. “Let him take his rod away from me,” Job ix, 34. The empire of the Messiah is sometimes represented by a rod of iron, to show its power and its might, Psalm ii, 9; Rev. ii, 27; xii, 5; xix, 15. Rod is sometimes put to signify a tribe or a people: “Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old, the rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed,” Psalm lxxiv, 2. “Israel is the rod of his inheritance,” Jer. x, 16. The rod of Aaron is the staff commonly used by the high priest. This is the rod that budded and blossomed like an almond tree, Num. xvii. See [Aaron].

ROMAN CATHOLICS, or members of the church of Rome, otherwise called papists, from the pope being considered by them as the supreme head of the universal church, the successor of St. Peter, and the fountain of theological truth and ecclesiastical honours. He keeps his court in great state at the palace of the Vatican, and is attended by seventy cardinals as his privy counsellors, in imitation of the seventy disciples of our Lord. The pope’s authority in other kingdoms is merely spiritual, but in Italy he is a temporal sovereign, Louis XVIII. and the allies having, in 1814, restored him to his throne, and to those temporalities of which he was deprived by Buonaparte and the French revolution. On resuming his government, Pope Pius VII. soon restored the order of Jesuits and the inquisition; so that the Roman Catholic religion is now reinstated in its ancient splendour and authority. The principal dogmas of this religion are as follows: 1. That St. Peter was deputed by Christ to be his vicar, and the head of the catholic church; and that the bishops of Rome, being his successors, have the same apostolical authority; for our Saviour declares, in Matt. xvi, 18, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church;” by which rock they understand St. Peter himself, as the name signifies, and not his confession, as the Protestants explain it. And a succession in the church being now supposed necessary under the New Testament, as Aaron had his succession under the old dispensation, which was a figure of the new, this succession can now, they contend, be shown only in the chair of St. Peter at Rome, where it is asserted he presided twenty-five years previous to his death; therefore, the bishops of Rome are his true successors. 2. That the Roman Catholic church is the mother and mistress of all churches, and cannot possibly err in matters of faith; for the church has the promise of the Spirit of God to lead it into all truth, John xvi, 13; “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matt. xvi, 18. Christ also, who is himself the truth, has promised to the pastors and teachers of the church to be with them “always, even to the end of the world,” Matt. xxviii, 20. “It is from the testimony and authority of the church, therefore,” say they, “that we receive the Scriptures as the word of God.” 3. That the Scriptures thus received on the authority of the church are not sufficient to our faith without apostolical traditions, which are of equal authority with the Scriptures; for St. Peter assures us, that in St. Paul’s epistles there “are some things hard to be understood, which they who are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction,” 2 Peter iii, 16. We are directed by St. Paul to “stand fast, and hold the traditions which we have been taught, whether by word or by epistle,” 2 Thess. ii, 15. 4. That seven sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ, namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony; and that they confer grace. To prove that confirmation, or imposition of hands, is a sacrament, they quote Acts viii, 17: “They,” the Apostles, “laid their hands on them,” believers, “and they received the Holy Ghost.” Penance is a sacrament in which the sins we commit after baptism, duly repented of, and confessed to a priest, are forgiven; and which they think was instituted by Christ himself when he breathed upon his Apostles after his resurrection, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye remit, are remitted; and whose sins ye retain, are retained,” John xx, 23. In favour of extreme unction, or anointing the sick with oil, they argue from James i, 14, 15, which is thus rendered in the Vulgate: “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil,” &c. The sacrament of holy orders is inferred from 1 Tim. iv, 14: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on the hands of the presbytery,” or priesthood, as they render it. That marriage is a sacrament, they think evident from Ephes. v, 32: “This is a great mystery,” representing the mystical union of Christ and his church. “Matrimony,” say they, “is here the sign of a holy thing, and therefore it is a sacrament.” Notwithstanding this, they enjoin celibacy upon the clergy, because they do not think it proper that those who, by their office and function, ought to be wholly devoted to God, should be diverted from those duties by the distractions of a married life, 1 Cor. vii, 32, 33. 5. That in the mass, or public service, there is offered unto God a true and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead; and that in the sacrament of the eucharist, under the forms of bread and wine, are really and substantially present the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is a conversion made of the whole substance of the bread into his body, and of the wine into his blood, which is called transubstantiation; according to our Lord’s words to his disciples, “This is my body,” &c, Matt. xxvi, 26; wherefore it becomes with them an object of adoration. Farther: it is a matter of discipline, not of doctrine, in the Roman church, that the laity receive the eucharist in one kind, that is, in bread only. This sacrifice of the mass was, they think, predicted by the Prophet Malachi, i, 11, who says, “In every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering.” 6. That there is a purgatory; and that souls kept prisoners there do receive help by the suffrages of the faithful. For it is said, in 1 Cor. iii, 15, “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire;” which they understand of the flames of purgatory. They also believe that souls are released from purgatory by the prayers and alms which are offered for them, principally by the holy sacrifice of the mass. They call purgatory a middle state of souls, into which those enter who depart this life in God’s grace; yet not without some less stains of guilt, which retard them from entering heaven, where nothing unclean can enter. 7. That the saints reigning with Christ (and especially the blessed virgin) are to be honoured and invoked; that they offer prayers unto God for us; and that their relics are to be had in veneration. These honours, however, are not divine, but relative, and redound to the divine glory, Rev. v, 8; viii, 4, &c. 8. That the image of Christ, of the blessed virgin, the mother of God, and of other saints, ought to be retained in churches, and honour and veneration ought to be given unto them. And as the images of cherubims were allowed in the temples, so images should be placed in churches, and had in veneration. 9. That the power of indulgences was left by Christ to the church, and that the use of them is very beneficial to Christian people; according to Matt. xvi, 19: “I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” By indulgences they do not mean leave to commit sin, nor pardon for sins to come; but only releasing, by the power of the keys committed to the church, the debt of temporal punishment which may remain due upon account of our sins, after the sins themselves, as to their guilt and eternal punishment, have been already remitted through repentance and confession, and by virtue of the merit of Christ, and of all the saints. By their indulgences they assert that they apply to their souls the merits of Christ, and of the saints and martyrs through him.

The ceremonies of this church are numerous and splendid, as, 1. They make use of the sign of the cross in all their sacraments, to give us to understand, that they have their whole force and efficacy from the cross. 2. Sprinkling of the holy water by the priest on solemn days is used likewise by every one going in or coming out of church. 3. The ceremony of blessing bells is, by the Catholics, called christening them; because the name of some saint is ascribed to them, by virtue of whose invocation they are presented, in order that they may obtain his favour and protection. 4. They always bow at the name of Jesus, (which is also done as regularly in the church of England,) and they found the practice on Phil. ii, 10: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” 5. They keep a number of lamps and wax candles continually burning before the shrines and images of the saints. 6. They make use of incense, and have lighted candles upon the altar at the celebration of the mass. 7. The practice of washing the poor’s feet, in imitation of our Lord’s washing the feet of his disciples, is solemnized on Holy Thursday by all the princes of the Romish religion in Europe. The church of Rome also professes to keep the fast of Lent with great strictness, and observes a much greater number both of feasts and festivals than the church of England.

The church of Rome assumes the title of Catholic, or universal, as answering to that article in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the holy Catholic church.” The above is perhaps a sufficient account of the Roman Catholic faith; but as the creed of Pope Pius IV. is universally admitted to be the true standard of that faith, it would be decidedly wrong to conclude without inserting it. Mr. Butler says it contains a succinct and explicit summary of the canons of the council of Trent, and was published in the form of a papal bull, in 1564. He adds, “It is received throughout the whole Roman Catholic church; every one who is admitted into that church, publicly reads and professes his assent to it.” This document commences with reciting the Nicene Creed, which, as it is admitted by the Protestant church of England, and inserted in the Common Prayer Book, need not be here repeated. It then proceeds with the twelve following articles, in addition to those of the Apostles’ Creed, which they also reckon twelve: “13. I most firmly admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other constitutions and observances of the same church. I also admit the sacred Scriptures according to the sense which the holy mother church has held, and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; nor will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers. 14. I profess also that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the salvation of mankind, (though all are not necessary for every one,) namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order, and matrimony; and that they confer grace; and of these, baptism, confirmation, and order cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. 15. I also receive and admit the ceremonies of the Catholic church, received and approved in the solemn administration of all the above said sacraments. 16. I receive and embrace all and every one of the things which have been defined and declared in the holy council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification. 17. I profess, likewise, that in the mass, is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic church calls transubstantiation. 18. I confess, also, that under either kind alone, Christ whole and entire, and a true sacrament, is received. 19. I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful. 20. Likewise, that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be honoured and invocated; that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to be venerated. 21. I most firmly assert, that the images of Christ, and of the mother of Christ, ever a virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration are to be given to them. 22. I also affirm, that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people. 23. I acknowledge the holy Catholic and apostolic Roman church, the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise and swear true obedience to the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ. 24. I also profess, and undoubtedly receive, all other things, delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, and particularly by the holy council of Trent; and likewise, I also condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto; and all heresies whatsoever, condemned and anathematized by the church. This true catholic faith, out of which none can be saved, which I now freely profess, and truly hold, I, N., promise, vow, and swear most constantly to hold and profess the same, whole and entire, with God’s assistance, to the end of my life. Amen.”