A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

ROSARY, among the Roman Catholics, is a pretended instrument or help to piety, being a chaplet, consisting of five, or fifteen, decads or tens of beads, to direct the reciting so many Ave Marias in honour of the Blessed Virgin.

Before a person repeats his rosary, he must cross himself with it: then he must repeat the Apostles’ Creed, and say a Pater and three Aves, on account of the three relations which the Virgin bears to the three persons in the Trinity. After these preliminaries to devotion, he passes on to his decads, and must observe to let himself into the mysteries of each ten by a prayer, which he will find in the books treating of the devotion of the rosary.

Some attribute the institution of the rosary to Dominic: but it was in use in the year 1100; and, therefore, Dominic could only make it more celebrated. Others ascribe it to Paulus Libycus, others to St. Benedict, others to Venerable Bede, and others to Peter the Hermit.

ROSECRUCIANS. A sect of philosophers in the early part of the seventeenth century, who combined much religious error and mysticism with their philosophical notions of transmutations, and of the chemical constitution of things. Their name is derived from ros, “dew,” which they held to be the most powerful solvent of gold; and crux, the “cross,” which in the chemical style signifies light, because the figure of the cross exhibits at the same time the three letters in the word lux. Now light, according to this sect, and in their absurd jargon, is the menstruum of the red dragon, i. e. the substance out of which gold is produced. The Rosecrucians then were alchemists, who sought for the philosopher’s stone by the intervention of dew and of light. These absurdities were associated with others in their system which it would be in vain to collect; but the ruling principle of their society seems to have been the imposing mystery in which they wrapped up everything which they knew, or pretended to know, as if the secrets of nature were made known to them, for the very purpose of being kept secret from all others. Of their leaders and religious fancies Mosheim gives the following summary:

At the head of the fanatics were Robert Fludd, a native of England, and a man of surprising genius; Jacob Behmen, a shoemaker, who lived at Goslitz; and Michael Mayer.

These leaders of the sect were followed by John Baptist Helmont, and his son Francis Christian Knorrius de Rosenroth, Kuhlman, Nollius, Sperber, and many others of various fame. An uniformity of opinion, and a spirit of concord, seemed scarcely possible in such a society as this; for as a great part of its doctrine is derived from certain internal feelings and flights of imagination, which can neither be comprehended nor defined, and is supported by testimonies of the external senses, whose reports are illusory and changeable, so it is remarkable that, among the more eminent writers of this sect, there are scarcely any two who adopt the same tenets and sentiments. There are, nevertheless, some common principles that are generally embraced, and which serve as a centre of union to the society. They maintain, that the dissolution of bodies, by the power of fire, is the only way through which men can arrive at true wisdom, and come to discern the first principle of things. They all acknowledge a certain analogy and harmony between the powers of nature and the doctrines of religion, and believe that the Deity governs the kingdom of grace by the same laws with which he rules the kingdom of nature; and hence it is that they employ chemical denominations to express the truths of religion. They all hold that there is a sort of divine energy, or soul, diffused through the frame of the universe, which some call Archæus, others Universal Spirit, and which others mention under different appellations. They all talk in the most obscure and superstitious manner of what they call the signatures of things, of the power of the stars over all corporeal beings, and their particular influence over the human race, of the efficacy of magic, and the various species and classes of demons. In fine, they all agree in throwing out the most crude, incomprehensible notions and ideas, in the most obscure, quaint, and unusual expressions.

RUBRICS. Rules and orders directing how, when, and where all things in Divine service are to be performed, which were formerly printed in a red character, (as now generally in an Italic,) and therefore called Rubrics, from the Latin rubrica (pro ruberica, à rubra, subaud. terra, red earth; thence any red colour). All the clergy of England solemnly pledge themselves to observe the rubrics.

The rubric, to which we here bind ourselves by express consent and promise, is upon a different footing from all other ecclesiastical laws. For without considering it as statute, and, as such, only upon the level with several other subsequent acts of parliament relating to our occasional ministrations, we are under this peculiar circumstance of obligation to observe it, that we have, by our subscriptions at both ordinations, by one of our vows at the altar for the order of priesthood, by our subscriptions and declarations of conformity before our ordinary, and repetition of them in the church before our congregations, and likewise by our declarations of assent and consent, as prescribed by the Act of Uniformity; I say, we have in all these several ways tied ourselves down to a regular, constant, conscientious performance of all and everything prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer, according to the usage of the Church of England. And seeing it hath been the wisdom of our Church to lay us under these engagements, in order to preserve exact uniformity in the public worship and all the liturgic offices; nay, since it hath been judged proper to carry us through a train of these stipulations before we can get possession of any benefice; and to make us renew them again and again, as often as we change our preferment, or obtain any new promotion; and seeing that we have entered (as we have professed) ex animo into this covenant with the Church, and have deliberately renewed it as often as there hath been occasion; how frivolous is it for any of us to say, that the connivance, or the presumed consent, of our ordinary, or the private conveniency of ourselves or families, or the obliging of any of our parishioners, or the apparent inexpediency of adhering to the letter in some few cases, will dissolve this our obligation to conformity? Surely we must know, that these and the like allegations are quite out of the case; that, however our Church governors may dispense with our breaches of the rubric, however our people may acquiesce in them or approve of them, yet the question is, how far we are at liberty to dispense with ourselves on account of the forementioned engagements, to which God and the Church are made witnesses in as solemn a manner as they are to our personal stipulations at confirmation or matrimony; or whether we have not in this case precluded ourselves from all benefit of such exemption or dispensation, as might perhaps be reasonably alleged in several other merely statutable or canonical matters?

This indeed we must always take along with us, that our obligations to observe the rubric, how indispensable soever, are subject to this proviso; namely, that the rule prescribed be a thing practicable; which perhaps cannot be said of all rubrics in all churches, or in all places of the kingdom; nay, that it be a thing which falls within the minister’s power, so that he be not deprived of his liberty in acting, or restrained in it by the previous acts of other people, whereby that which would be practicable in itself is rendered not practicable by him. I will not positively say, that no other proviso is to be allowed of or admitted; because this cannot be determined absolutely, or otherwise than by a particular consideration of each rule or injunction under several different circumstances. But we may affirm in general, that we are under higher obligations to observe the rubric than any other ecclesiastical law whatsoever; that excepting a very few cases, or under some necessary limitations and reservations, we are bound to adhere to it literally, punctually, and perpetually; and that, whosoever among the clergy either adds to it, or diminishes from it, or useth any other rule instead of it, as he is in the eye of the law so far a nonconformist, so it behoves him to consider with himself, whether, in point of conscience, he be not a breaker of his word and trust, and an eluder of his engagements to the Church.—Archdeacon Sharpe.

RURAL DEANS. The office of rural dean is an ancient office of the Church, which is mentioned as early as the time of Edward the Confessor, in one of whose laws mention is made of the dean of the bishop.