Re ay, Stephen, an Anglican divine, was born at Montrose. New Brunswick, in 1782, was educated at St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, and was Laudian professor of Ara- bic from 1840 till his death. He published, Observations on the Defence of the Church Missionary Society against the Objections of the Archdeacon of Bath, by Pileus Quadratus (1818, 8vo) :—Narratio he Josepho e Sacro Codice (1822):— Texius Ilebraicus (Lond. 1822, 1840, 12mo).
Reay, William, an English divine of the Estab- lishment, flourished near the middle of the 18th century. He was curate and lecturer of Wordsworth in 1755. He died in 1756. He published Sermons, with Preface bv T. Church, D.D., prebend of St. Paul's (Lond. 1755, 8vo).
Re'ba (IIeb.?V. VZ-t.four; Sept.'Po/3<k in Numb., 'Po/3f in Josh. ; Vulg. Hebe), one of the five kings of the Midianites slain by the children of Israel in their avenging expedition when Balaam fell (Numb, xxxi, 8; Josh.xiii, 21). B.C. 1858.
Rebaptism. The ancient Church, if it did not openly declare against the repetition of baptism, cer- tainly refused to rebaptize, and supported its position by assigning, not one, but many reasons. It espe- cially maintained that there is no example of rebap- tization in Scripture; and as baptism succeeds to cir- cumcision, which was the entrance and seal of the old covenant, and could not be repeated, so baptism, being the sign and seal of admission to the new covenant, the breaches of this covenant are not to be repaired by re- peated baptisms. There were in the early Church some heretics who rebaptized, such as the Marcionites; but the Catholic Church disapproved of the practice. In one of Cyprian's epistles there is a question referred to Stephen, bishop of Rome, whether it was necessary to rebaptize heretics who sought admission to the Catholic Church ; or whether it should be deemed sufficient, pro- ceeding upon the acknowledged validity of their bap- tism, to receive them with the simple ceremony of im- position of hands and ecclesiastical benediction. The Roman bishop acceded to the latter opinion. The Afri- can bishops, on the other hand, declared the baptism of heretics to be null and void, and would not recognise their confirmation at the hands of a Catholic bishop as sufficient for their reception into the Church. They demanded another baptism, to be followed by the usual
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confirmation, notwithstanding the Church of Rome per- I in maintaining that the baptism of heretics, provided only thai it had been administered in due form, aiii^ valid and sufficient and ought not to be repeated.— Farrar, Theol. Diet, b. v. la the modern Church rebap- 1 1—1*1 is practiced by the Romanists and the Anglicans. The latter deny the validity of other Protestant bodies if such oppose the divine right of apostolical succession. The Baptists, ol course, recognise as valid only immer- sion, and not infrequently repeat this ordinance if it has been performed by persons known as Poedobaptists (q.v.). See Elagenbacb, Hist, of Doctrines, ii. 364 sq.; Hbfling, Lekn von der Tau/< (Erlang. 1846). See also Anabaptists; Baptism.
Rebec'ca (Pef&Kica I, the Graecized form (Horn, ix, 10) of the name Rebek vb (q. v.).
Rebek'ah (Heb. Eibkah', ~~z~, a noose, i.e. en- snarer; Sept., New Test., and Josephus, 'PejSEKica), the daughter of Bethuel (Gen. xxii, 23 I and sister ol Laban, married to Isaac, who Btood in the relation of a first cousin i" her father and to Lot She i- first presented to us in the account of the mission of Eliezer to Padan- aram (ch. xxiv), in which his interview with Rebekah, her consent and marriage, arc relate. 1. Ii.< '. 2023. The elder branch of the, family remained at Haran when Abraham removed to the land of Canaan, and it is there that we first meet, with Laban, as taking the leading part in the betrothal of his sister Rebekah to her cousin [saac (xxiv, 10,29-60; xxvii, 43; xxix, 4). Bethu- el, his father, plays so insignificant a part in the whole transaction, being in fact only mentioned once, and that after his sou I xxiv. .Mil, that various conjectures have been formed to explain il. Josephus assert-- that Bethu- el was dead, and that Laban was the head of the house and his sister's natural guardian {Ant. i, 16,2), in which case ■• Bethuel" must have crept into the text inadver- tently, or he supposed, with some (Adam Clarke, ad loc. i. to he i he name of another brother of Rebekah. Le CI. -re (//( I'tiil.) mentions i he conjecture that Lot Intel was absent at first, but returned in time to gh e his con- sent to the marriage. The mode adopted by Prof. Blunt (Undesigned Coincidences, p.35) to explain what he terms -the consistent insignificance of Bethuel," viz. that lie was incapacitated from taking the management of his family by age or imbecility, is most ingenious; but the prominence of Laban may be sufficiently explained by the custom of the country, which then, as now i see Nie- buhr, quoted by Rosenmllller, ad I >c. . ga^ e the brothers the main share in the arrangement of their sister's mar- riage and the defence of her honor (comp.Gen. xxxiv. 13; Judg. xxi. ■_'■_'; 2 Sam. xiii. 20 29). See Bl mi i i.
The whole chapter has been pointed out as uniting most of the circumstances of a pattern marriage— the sanc- tion of parents, the guidance of God, the domestic u-